


Myself Almost Despising

by TashaLaw



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Romance, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 35,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29020902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TashaLaw/pseuds/TashaLaw
Summary: Not everything is as it seems at first blush. Sara wakes up in the hospital and begins to piece together a trauma she endured at the hands of the person she trusts most.
Relationships: Gil Grissom/Sara Sidle
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a dark and angsty fic. Trigger warning for domestic violence. Although that isn't really what this story is about, there will be depictions of abuse/torture, so read at your own risk. Also, trigger warning for attempted suicide. There's a bit of sexual content (consensual) as well.

As Sara struggled through the vague and hazy fog which had for some reason enveloped her consciousness, she was aware of light and sound. The light was bright - brighter than the fluorescent world a night worker such as herself was used to seeing. Sunlight? Her rational side speculated. Peeking open one eye, she confirmed that a shadeless window near her bed was the culprit for the excessive amount of ultraviolet radiation now assaulting her.

And there was a sound… beeping? Dull and rhythmic, the low tone interrupted the quiet slowly enough to be a comfort rather than a nuisance. As she listened, it made time with her own heartbeat.

Heartbeat.

Heart monitor.

The observation hit her like a bucket of cold water, and Sara clawed her way towards more conscious awareness, suddenly realizing the cottony haze around her was drug-induced. A needle in her arm led to an IV bag beside the bed, and she could feel the heart monitor on one of her fingers. A shifting of her legs betrayed the feeling of a catheter beneath the sheets.

That was never a good sign.

"Where...?" she began in alarm, struggling to speak even as her words came out slurred. Her throat ached, she realized, and swallowing did little to help with the dryness. Alarm began to set in as Sara did her best to sit up. But even putting the slightest flex into the muscles of her abdomen resulted in blinding pain, and she hissed sharply.

Beside her, Nick sat up in his chair and moved closer to her, as though he had been dozing and suddenly woke at her aborted question.

"Sara!" he said, breaking into a smile. Reaching over to her bed, Sara noticed him press one of the buttons on her bed, presumably to call a nurse. "You're at Desert Palms Hospital. Everything's going to be all right."

As he spoke, he scooted his chair closer to her and reached for her hand. The gingerly way he held it, careful of the IV attached, Sara knew things must be far worse than she could imagine at that moment. In many ways, Nick acted like the brother she had never known, both joshing and protecting her at every turn. But now, there was no teasing humor in his eyes, only naked concern and gratification that she was alive.

She glanced around, although the movement sparked an ugly ache in her neck. "Where's…" Her throat ached at the attempt at speech, but she cleared it impatiently. "Where's Grissom?"

Nick opened his mouth to speak, but then he hesitated. "He's… Sara…"

Before he could formulate a response, a nurse entered the room. Nick informed the woman needlessly, "She's awake."

The nurse leaned over the hospital bed to study the monitors before checking Sara's IV. Patting Sara's hand gently, she gave her a smile before looking back at Nick. "I'll get the doctor and be right back."

But Sara was already looking back at her friend, the brief interruption having only served to stir her growing alarm. Already, memories of what had occurred the night before had begun to permeate her consciousness, and with them came a cold wave of fear making it difficult to breath.

"Where's Grissom?" she asked again, more strongly this time.

"Sara…" Nick began, obviously trying to choose his words carefully.

But the interminable wait for his answer clawed at her, and Sara demanded, "Nick, is he alive?"

The question seemed to startle him, and the other CSI momentarily froze in horror as he met her eyes. What he saw there, she would never know, but he finally understood her desperation.

"Yes, Sara, he's alive. He's fine. It's just..."

Not even taking a breath to give a sigh of relief, she pursued doggedly, "Was he hurt? Where is he? Is he here at the hospital?"

Even as Nick shook his head, she was ready to ask more questions. He held up a hand to slow her down. The gesture only served to frighten her as the Texan drawled slowly, "Sara, do you remember what happened to you?"

She blinked at the question. Up until that moment, all she could think about was Grissom. She remembered being afraid for him, of icy terror replacing every single drop of blood in her body as the image of a gun to his head floated into her mind, quickly replaced by the unnaturally loud sound of a gunshot at close range.

It had not occurred to her to think about why she herself was in the hospital. But the query drew her up short, and she realized how much of the haze of whatever pain medication in her IV was beginning to abate. Pain replaced that feeling of numbness, and she focused on the source.

Her abdomen. Her hand. Her feet. Her skin - pretty much everywhere. The side of her face pulled when she spoke, and she thought she could make out the tug of a line of stitches. Each new pain tied itself to renewed flashes of memory, horrible images forming in her mind as she remembered each circumstance.

A knife, drug across her skin, parting the layers of the epidermis until blood flowed. A lit match, held to her foot until it burned out. And then another. And another.

Flexing the hand which did not have the IV and heart monitor attached, Sara realized several of her fingers were in splints. Nausea rolled over her as she remembered the person who had so delicately taken that hand into hers, as gently as though he were handling fine china. And then, an aching moment later, he had wrenched her little finger unnaturally to the side, breaking delicate bones and sending agony up her entire arm.

In her mind's eye, Sara traced the hand holding hers, followed the callused fingers across white knuckles to a masculine wrist. The hand connected to a very familiar arm, but she allowed her mind to complete the journey despite knowing where it would end.

His arm disappeared into the sleeve of a simple t-shirt, the kind he often wore to bed, and Sara finally lifted her eyes to his face. A sharp contrast to what he had just done to her, his expression bespoke unimaginable agony. Tears floated at the edge of his eyes, and his mouth had set into a firm line. Despite a very obvious attempt to remain composed and collected, she knew all too well the force of emotions necessary to crack this man's typical facade of calm.

"Sara?" Nick said, drawing her attention. "Do you remember what happened? Can you tell me who did this to you?"

Her lips trembled as they formed the name, not from anger or betrayal, but from continued apprehension for his safety. "Grissom."

Her friend stared at her a long, uncomfortable minute before he closed his eyes briefly and sighed. "Grissom did this to you?" he asked, not entirely surprised but also clearly hoping he had misunderstood her.

Flashes of recollection set off in her mind, little firework-bright explosions of pain-filled awareness. Every cut, every burn, every broken bone and bit of tortured flesh, had been inflicted by the same hands, she knew. Grissom had done it all. Sara had no question in her mind that was true.

And yet... the emotions tied to every moment of her ordeal were completely contradictory to what she would expect. Blame would not be admitted, not then and not now, and Sara searched her memory to explain why.

"I think…" she began, taking a second to run her tongue over dry lips. Suddenly, speaking seemed terribly difficult, and Sara felt the weight of exhaustion begin to press down on her again. "I think … I think he did it to save my life."

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Grissom sat absolutely still, his hands casually resting on the table, fingers interlaced as though the position was completely natural and not necessitated by the steel cuffs securely attaching his wrists to the interrogation room table. With head bowed, his unmoving eyes stared at a single point on the surface.

Across from him, Catherine Willows leaned back in her chair and just watched her supervisor. Neither had spoken, and the silence in the room made for an eerie atmosphere. Catherine had known Grissom long enough to recognize that reflective silences were an indication of him working out some complex theory or puzzle in his head. But not this time. This time, he seemed completely frozen, as though his mind refused to work at all.

Behind her, the interrogation room door opened, and Catherine turned to see Brass entering with Ecklie behind him. She raised her eyebrows at the two men.

"Still hasn't said anything?" Brass asked, nodding towards Grissom. He spoke with the concerned tone of a friend, not an interrogator.

"Not a word a word since we brought him in. Is it possible he's still in shock?"

With a shrug, Brass answered, "The EMTs checked him out. Said he didn't have a scratch on him."

At this, Ecklie interjected, "But the report I got said he was found covered in blood."

"We're still processing it, but it must have all been Sara's," Catherine observed quietly. "Have you heard anything from the hospital?"

"That's what I was just coming to tell you," Brass stated. "Nick called and said she just woke up."

Throughout their conversation, Grissom had not stirred. But now, they all glanced at Grissom, who moved for the first time in the hours since he had been brought into the interrogation room. Now wearing a clean jail uniform, the blood having been washed from his skin and hair after he was processed for evidence, he looked up from the table at the mention of Sara waking up.

He stared at them like a drowning man who had just been pulled from the water. Speaking slowly, softly, he asked tentatively, "Sara's alive?"

Brass stepped forward and took one of the seats opposite the CSI supervisor. "Yeah, she got out of surgery last night. Doc at the hospital says its good odds she'll pull through, although the bullet really tore through her insides."

Grissom did not respond. He simply met the other man's eyes for a long moment before lowering his head until he could bury his face in the upturned palms of his cuffed hands. Inconceivably, the others heard him make small noises which could only be sobs. Alarmed, Catherine glanced at Brass, and the cop barely shrugged in response. Neither of them had ever seen Grissom so emotionally devastated, not even when Natalie Davis had kidnapped Sara and left her under a wrecked car in the middle of the desert.

They gave him a few moments, waiting until he stopped weeping and wiped the tears from his eyes. Finally, what felt like a short lifetime later, he sat up again.

Without preamble, Ecklie stated, "Preliminary fingerprints from the scene seem to all be from the same source. That's why you're here, Grissom."

"They're mine."

Grissom spoke without hesitation, without a second of subterfuge or deceptions. While he did not look up at them but kept his eyes focused firmly on the handcuffs holding his wrists, there was no mistaking his words. In the shockwave of the confession, the others fell silent and looked at each other in confusion.

Addressing Catherine, Ecklie went on, "You and the rest of the night shift are officially off the case. Brass and I will continue this interrogation."

"You can't seriously think he did this?" Catherine exclaimed, turning back to the lab director. "Ecklie, even you couldn't possibly-"

"It was me," Grissom interrupted her, speaking quietly as he lifted his head. With red, puffy eyes and cheeks streaked with wetness, he went on, "Every cut on her body… I did it. Every burn. Everything."

The admission stunned the others, and at first, no one knew what to say, not even Ecklie.

"Why?" Catherine managed finally.

As one of his oldest friends, she had trouble believing Grissom capable of such actions against anyone, let alone Sara. Everyone knew about his feelings for Sara, even if they hadn't been with him as the team had searched for her after she'd managed to escape from the death trap Natalie Davis had left her in. But she had been there with him every step, had ached with him as he found evidence of Sara's desperate plod through the desert. Even then she had wondered if Grissom could possibly survive if they failed to find her - or failed to find her alive. The very thought that he might actually harm Sara flew directly contrary to Grissom's very nature. Confronting the confession he now gave them seemed as surreal as trying to accept that some certain aspects of reality did not exist. The sun actually revolved around the Earth. The color yellow was a figment of the imagination. Gravity was only a suggestion.

Shaking her head, Catherine discarded the notion of Grissom's entirely. She had been one of the first CSIs at the scene and had witnessed first-hand the carnage in Grissom's garage. The EMTs had wasted no time and were already loading Sara onto a gurney. But to one side, Grissom had sat on the ground, his clothes covered in blood, his expression a mixture of agony and… something else. Guilt, perhaps?

At the time, everyone supposed there to have been a third person, someone who had held both Grissom and Sara captive while torturing the couple. Various knives and other implements were scattered on the floor near an overturned table, all smeared with blood. A sturdy wooden chair sat in the center of the garage, also smeared with blood. Straps which had obviously tied one of them in place had been cut off.

From the time Catherine had arrived at the scene, Grissom had not said one word, had barely reacted to anything as they processed his clothes and body for evidence. Whatever trauma he had endured in that garage had put him into a catatonic state, she assumed. Until now.

Confused, Catherine stuttered, "Why would you… I mean, how could you… not Sara…?"

Grissom could not meet her gaze as he took a shuddering breath and simply sat there, his mouth slightly open as his brain struggled for words. Never much for expressing himself, this situation seemed to have sapped even his will to even try.

Beside her, Ecklie asked, "Were you the one who shot her?"

"Shot…"

Grissom closed his eyes tightly, like a reflex against an onslaught of memories. Catherine watched as his hands gripped tightly into fists, his knuckles nearly white. Every muscle in his body seemed taunt and strained, but there was no anger in his expression. Only… devastation.

"I think so," Grissom murmured softly, finally answering. He opened his eyes to meet Ecklie's gaze, and Catherine saw no artifice there, only a deep and unending pain.

"You think so?" their supervisor demanded, anger putting an edge on his words.

His shoulders already slumped, Grissom appeared to deflate even more in front of their eyes as he looked down at his hands once again. Catherine had never seen him so low, so utterly demoralized.

"The evidence shows you had GSR on your clothes," Ecklie went on. "And your prints are on the gun."

"They would be…" he said, more to himself than them, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Grissom, for God's sake, what happened?" Brass interjected, speaking up in the interrogation for the first time. "Do you really expect us all to believe you raped Sara - your Sara, our Sara - and then proceed to torture her for hours before putting a bullet in her stomach? Is that really what you're saying?"

Catherine's head spun around at the allegation of sexual assault, but Ecklie did not seem startled by it. Rather, the folder he had been holding when he entered had been handed to Brass, who had it open and spread on the table. Glancing at the lab report, Catherine barely had time to peruse the preliminary results before Brass explained, "They did a rape kit at the hospital. They found semen."

Ecklie interjected starkly, "I think we all know who the DNA match is going to come back to."

For a long time, no one said anything. Trained interrogators all, the three people on the other side of the table from him knew that giving Grissom time to speak might prompt him to say more. And eventually, he did.

Not looking up, he spoke in a low and measured tone, "I didn't rape her. We had sex, but it was consensual."

The caveat held them all in place for a few beats, and Catherine looked at Brass. While he was a seasoned investigator, even he seemed flummoxed by the entire interview.

The silence continued for a beat too long, and Grissom provided, "We had dinner. A bottle of wine. And then we made love. I didn't force her."

"But you did torture her," Ecklie persisted.

Grissom did not react to the accusation. Rather, he seemed to absorb it, to take in the lab director's emotions and add them to his own. The effort seemed to deaden her friend's expression even more, his normally bright blue darkened with anguish. Whatever had happened in his house, whatever he had or hadn't done to Sara, Catherine knew deep within her heart that Grissom was as tortured by the events as their friend lying in a hospital bed at Desert Palms.

"That can't be the whole story," she interjected. "There must be something you're not telling us, Gil, something that makes sense of all this-"

Frowning at her, Ecklie spat, "Willows, I told you that you're off the case. Leave the interrogation room. Immediately."

His sudden insistence on protocol incensed Catherine, and she glared at him in response. But the lab director did not back down. Instead, he met her narrowed gaze with a look of measured calm. Crossing his arms over his chest, he reminded her without saying a word who held the keys to her career. Finally, Catherine looked away and moved towards the door.

But as she stood in the doorway, ready to take a step out and pull the door closed behind her, she paused. Looking at her supervisor and long-time friend, she said fiercely, "Gil, don't say anything else. I'm getting you a lawyer."

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Everything hurt. The pain seemed both dull and distant and yet also near and immediate. The drugs which kept it at bay left her in a fog the few moments she could keep sleep at bay, and Sara hated the feeling.

"Grissom's in jail?" she asked Nick, confused and horrified.

Their earlier conversation had been interrupted by the arrival of the doctor who gave her a detailed assessment of her various injuries. Most were shallow, superficial cuts which would fade in a week or two. Others, like her broken fingers, would take longer. The gunshot wound to her abdomen turned out to be the crown jewel of her various ailments, and recovery would likely put her out of commission for months. Surgery had been necessary, of course, and the doctor explained that portions of her intestines had been removed. Her stomach had also sustained damage which they had also repaired, but thankfully, none of her other organs had been hit by the bullet.

While not the perfect bill of health, Sara accepted it for what it meant in the end: she would live. But now, she had other, more important matters to address.

Like why Gil Grissom was in jail.

"Once the initial evidence came back, they had to arrest him, Sara."

"But he didn't… this wasn't his fault."

"Catherine called while you were asleep," he told her. "She says he admitted to everything. In front of Ecklie, no less. Why would he confess?"

Sara shook her head, hot anger suddenly coursing through her veins. How could they believe Gil - the man they all knew and loved - would ever be capable of such a thing? She had never been in doubt, not for one moment…

A flash of image went through her mind, and Sara remembered the feeling of the tape across her mouth, muffling her screams and making it impossible to speak. Of course, she could not tell how loud her screams might have been as the headphones over her ears blocked out nearly all sound, replacing it with a near deafening white noise. Ironically, Sara had supposed at the time that it was the closest she would ever come to understanding how Grissom felt when he thought he was going deaf.

"I don't know," she admitted, "but if you had seen him… He wasn't himself."

"Sara…" Nick prompted her, "did you ever see anyone else?"

The question brought her up short, and she took the opportunity to really search her memory. While parts of that night were still hazy, she found that by focusing on small details she could sharpen her recollection and pick out other things she might not have otherwise recalled. It was almost like processing a crime scene, she thought, searching through rubble and debris for pieces of a puzzle.

"No," she admitted finally. "I only ever saw Grissom. But, Nick… there had to be someone else there. Somehow, someone forced him do what he did, I know it."

Nick did not comment on her certainties but simply asked, "What about when you were shot?"

Unlike the rest of her memories, that moment proved too elusive for her brain to find. Blood loss from her other injuries had begun to make her weak, and the violence of what came next must have blocked out the rest.

"I remember that the table was knocked over," Sara offered slowly.

The table holding the instruments Grissom had used to hurt her. In a former life, that plastic, folding table had enjoyed an obscure existence in Grissom's converted garage, tucked away when not needed but occasionally pulled out for larger projects. Never once did it occur to her that such an innocuous object could become a part of a crime scene in which she was the victim of...

Very deliberately, Sara had avoided using the term 'torture.' It cast Grissom in an unfair light, especially as their team was still investigating. Regardless of what he had done, and regardless of what his reasons might ultimately have been, she knew Gil Grissom to be a gentle and honorable man.

"There was a scuffle, maybe?" Nick asked, bringing her back to their conversation.

"Maybe," she allowed, although she could not be certain. "I only remember the sound when everything hit the floor. It was the only thing loud enough to get through the white noise on the headphones. Well, other than..."

Other than the gunshot.

Nick nodded in understanding. "Okay, that's something. What else do you remember? Did Grissom ever try to talk to you? Give you a signal or anything?"

With a deep and exhausted sigh, Sara answered, "I don't know. He… I've never seen him that way, Nick. He looked like he was in such agony…"

The recollection flashed before her eyes as if she were suddenly reliving the moment. Grissom had just set down her foot, the gentle way he slowly lowered it in direct contrast to the firm hand which had held her from involuntarily pulling away moments earlier. The burns on her arches screamed through her neural pathways, taking the most direct route through her body to her brain and lighting up pain receptors like a fireworks show.

But one look at Grissom's face and Sara knew that he not only shared the pain he had inflicted on her, but he internalized it entirely. Regret warred with grief in his features, and those emotions seemed to have taken up a permanent residence on his face.

"He turned away from me and just stood very still," she told Nick. "He just stood like that, frozen, for... so long. I can't even remember how long. But then he turned around again. He picked up the gun from the table, and..."

Closing her eyes at mention of the firearm, Sara felt a renewed flash of horror fill her up and invade her senses. The wound in her abdomen ached painfully even as she remembered the smell of spent gunpowder, the bright flash from the muzzle in the same instant that a loud boom had made her entire world explode.

Nick sat at her side, a steady and comforting presence. "They only found one gun at the scene. The one you were shot with," he said.

As he spoke, Sara let his calm Texas drawl bring her back to the present. She was safe, Sara reminded herself. The ordeal was over.

And yet, it really wasn't.

Focusing on the memory she had been describing, Sara went on, "He picked up the gun and turned back to me. Then he… He put it to the side of his head. He closed his eyes. And then he…" Her voice cracked with emotion as tears began to cloud her vision. "He pulled the trigger."

Pausing to compose herself, Sara looked at her friend. "He didn't hesitate. He just… he picked up the gun, placed the muzzle directly against the side of his skull, and he pulled the trigger."

The moment she described seemed to have an equally traumatic impact on Nick. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but words did not come. Neither one of them could make sense of what she remembered. Why would Grissom try to kill himself? And even more strangely, why hadn't he succeeded?

"It didn't fire," Nick noted, stating the obvious.

She shook her head, and he went quiet, obviously working on the puzzle of what she had described for him. But to Sara, it did not feel like a mystery. Grissom's expression in that moment had now taken firm root in her memory, and she knew it would never truly leave her. He had shown no surprise at still being alive after pulling the trigger and realizing nothing had happened. Nor had he looked relieved. Rather, his face had briefly morphed into disappointed agony before being replaced by a mask of indifference.

"He… he was disappointed the gun didn't fire. He wanted to die, Nick."

The words emerged from her in a strange sort of dispassionate assessment, but her reaction at the time had been nothing of the sort. Sara remembered screaming through the duct tape on her mouth, recalled fighting against the tightness of the ropes holding her wrists bound to the wooden chair. She had struggled so hard, her skin had been rubbed raw.

Looking down at her wrists, she saw the redness was still there. The rope burns seemed tame compared to her litany of other injuries, and she knew that was why she had not noticed the marks before. Nick followed her gaze, and gingerly he took one of her hands in his own in order to examine the friction burns.

"Grissom didn't do that," she quickly told him. "I did it when I was struggling. I was trying to…"

"Stop him from killing himself," Nick filled with a nod.

She felt the words as much as heard them, and they pierced Sara's soul as effectively as the bullet which had embedded itself in her abdomen. Grissom had tried to kill himself.

Because of her.

She and Nick had been talking for what felt like hours, and the pain medication in Sara's system had metabolized enough to let her mind think more clearly. The memories of that terrible night which had previously been so jumbled and confusing now seemed to find a new order.

"That happened three times," she reported dutifully, "Gil putting the gun to his head. The first time was a while after I first woke up. And then, a few hours later, he did it again. And then later, I guess a few hours after that, the third time…"

A shudder wracked her body, and Nick gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "I know its hard to talk about, Sara, but the more information you can give me, the better. We really need to piece together what happened… and why."

Nodding, Sara took a deep breath before continuing. "Each time he pulled the trigger, nothing happened. The first time, I think he was surprised. But the second time, he seemed so resigned. And then by the third time, the last time… He just looked so utterly destroyed. Nick, I don't think I've ever seen him like that before. It was as if he'd been once again denied release from some… horrible nightmare."

Her inability to truly articulate the nuances of Grissom's actions and reactions frustrated Sara to no end. Their ordeal had left her weak and tired, and she hated being handled with kid gloves.

As if in direct contradiction to her internal feelings, Nick observed, "I think the real nightmare is what happened to you, Sara. You had a lot of injuries-"

Cutting him off, she added, "Most of which were superficial."

"Yeah, okay, but many weren't. That cut on your face was pretty serious, not to mention your fingers…"

Resolutely, Sara shook her head.

"It was worse for him," she insisted. "You weren't there, Nick. You didn't see how… destroyed he looked.."

While the other CSI seemed skeptical, he did not argue. Sara continued on, "I think whoever was forcing him to do all this must have been nearby. They must have been threatening my life if he didn't do whatever they said."

Nick looked down at his hands and then back up at her, formulating his words carefully. "Sara, there's no indication anyone else was in the room. All the fingerprints were his. Even on the gun. And we couldn't test for GSR because of the contamination-"

"Did you test our blood?" she asked suddenly.

His eyebrows shot up, obviously not having considered that angle. "Your blood?"

"Yeah. I, uh, I remember falling asleep in bed, and then when I woke up, I was in the garage, tied to that chair. I got there somehow without waking up, so the person behind this must have drugged us."

Nodding slowly, Nick said, "They've been focusing on fingerprints and DNA, but I'll have them test the blood from the scene and the samples they took when you were admitted." He cleared his throat before looking away uncomfortably. "Speaking of bed… I hate to ask this, Sara, but you know I've got to. They did a sexual assault kit and…"

For the first time during their conversation, she smiled, taking a perverse enjoyment of her friend's obvious discomfort.

Nick went on, "We all know you and Grissom are involved, but given everything else that happened, you know I have to ask…"

Finally putting him out of his misery, Sara answered, "Yes, we had sex. And yes, it was consensual." She waited until Nick looked away in embarrassment, his tormented expression relaxing into relief before he looked back at her. Then, she went on, "Nick, you know me. And you know Grissom. He would never, ever hurt me. I believe that with every fiber of my being. I know you believe the same thing."

Before answering her, Nick locked eyes with her and took in a deep breath. Slowly, he let the air out of his lungs, as though the fresh oxygen in his bloodstream might provide some extra clarity. "I believe the same thing," he told her solemnly.

Any further questions were cut short as a nurse entered the room and began taking Sara's vitals. Her strength sapped from discussing so much remembered trauma, she made no complaint as the woman gave her the scheduled dose of pain medication. With heavy lidded eyes, Sara flashed Nick one last reassuring smile before succumbing to a deep and dreamless sleep.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, this chapter is rated M for sexual content. If that's not your cup of tea, feel free to skip the flashback portion of the chapter, which is in italics.

_The wine with dinner left her grinning more than usual, laughing freely at Grissom's stories without care or concern. In the spirit of enjoying a light, refreshing evening together after far too many nights spent drudging through the darkness of their work, he had been sharing humorous anecdotes from his early career. Most of them were entomology-related, which left him speaking excitedly about every detail. Sara soaked up his enthusiasm, not finding his bugs as fascinating as he did, but reveling in his boy-like eagerness to share._

_Even so, after a time he asked gently, "I'm not boring you, am I?"_

_Sara shook her head. "I like seeing you like this - carefree. Happy."_

_The year had been a difficult one for the both of them. While there were certain benefits to their relationship having been pulled into the public eye - restaurant dates, for instance, were now permitted - Sara's move to swing shift had complicated their schedules. They saw each other at work still, but not as often as before, and finding time off together proved even more of a challenge. So the rare evening when they could just enjoy each other's presence was a wonderful and elusive gift indeed._

_Grissom rewarded her candor with one of his rare smiles, the kind which reflected in his eyes so strongly that she could almost feel the warmth radiating from him. "Being with you makes me happy," he told her before leaning forward to meet her lips with his own._

_They kissed their way from the couch to his bedroom, shedding clothes as they went. His touch seemed even more gentle and reverent on this night, as though she were one of the fragile butterflies on his walls._

" _I won't break," she challenged him, pulling his body down on top of her on the bed. But he only responded by taking his weight on his arms and moving his lips across her skin. He immediately found the smooth spot beneath her ear, lavishing it with attention until he elicited a moan. Then he continued his exploration, never staying in one place too long. The shoulder. Her clavicle. The hollow spot at the base of her neck._

_Urgency stirred within her and Sara tried to pull him closer, to bring their bodies in alignment. As if in answer, he moved one leg between hers, using the pressure there to excite her further. But the position allowed her to feel exactly how much his own body craved hers._

" _Please, Gil," she whimpered as his lips continued to tease and sooth her skin. "I want you."_

_He moved back up to kiss her again, long and lingering and slow, before whispering shyly, "You have me." With his words, he moved to rub against her, his length now as rigid as his leg had been between her legs._

_Rising to meet him, she closed her eyes and moaned, "More…"_

_But instead of taking what she offered so readily, he leaned down to kiss her again, swallowing her cries as he moved a hand down between them to caress her. His fingers against her were the most firm they had been all night, and she writhed in exquisite appreciation of the pleasure he was building in her. But another part of her craved him deeper, inside her, claiming her fully both body and spirit._

_Peeking her eyes open, she saw him looking down at her, need and shadows turning his blue eyes dark. She opened her mouth to speak again, but he took the opportunity to kiss her again, never ceasing the attentions of his hand against her core._

_Sara shuddered suddenly as his deliberate ministrations put her over the edge, and for a long moment, the ferocity of his kiss extended the climax. She could focus on nothing but his skin against hers as wave after wave of intensity surged through her body. Slowly, he disengaged his lips from hers, and only after she had relaxed again did he change his position. She felt him against her again, pulsing and still very hard, and she waited for him to continue the natural progression of their lovemaking._

" _Sara…" Grissom whispered, and she knew he was asking permission. He always did this, she reminded herself. Either with a look or a word, he always confirmed her willingness right before that moment._

" _Please," she said again, growling with slight irritation at his hesitance. They had made love before, countless times in the past two and a half years. Why did he still feel the need to confirm her compliance, even in so small a way?_

_Before she could go further down that line of thought, he did what she had been wanting since they found their way to his bed. Her recent climax helped him ease into her, but Grissom still moved slowly, patiently letting her take each inch of him rather than taking her with one full stroke. His care felt maddening as a renewed need ignited itself at the feel of him inside her. Likely feeling her muscles tense around him, he groaned just as he buried himself completely._

_He still held his weight on his arms, for the most part, and Sara could feel them quivering from the effort. Wanting him to feel more comfortable, she silently wrapped her arms around his body and urged him to rest his body atop of hers._

_At first, Grissom resisted, but after a moment he compromised, letting her take most of his weight while his hands moved up and entwined with hers. Only when she urged him to start the natural rhythm they both desired did he begin seeking his own orgasm in earnest._

_Each stroke felt amazing, but Sara also delighted simply in their closeness. She could smell his musk and feel the rasp of his breath against her skin. His fingers interlaced with hers and then flexed gently in time with his slow, deliberate movements. Like an orchestra building to a crescendo, he gradually increased the speed of his thrusts._

_Forcing her eyes open despite the pleasure building inside her, Sara watched as he finished, his body tight and hard against hers, his fingers squeezing hers so tightly it almost felt painful. He groaned at the very end, tensing and clutching onto her with more desperation than he showed in any other aspect of their relationship. Finally, his body relaxed and he collapsed in exhaustion, letting his body finally collapse on top of her without a hint of reservation._

_Though it made it a little difficult to breathe deeply, Sara reveled in the sheer broadness of his shoulders as his weight pressed her into the bed. This exact moment was why she often preferred the classic missionary position to more adventurous placements of their bodies. Besides, Sara also knew that Grissom was still a bit old fashioned, and this position allowed him the most control._

_After a short moment, he came back to himself and began to move off of her. About to protest, Sara stopped as she felt him withdraw from her body and reposition himself with one arm and one leg draped across her. Sighing in contentment, Sara closed her eyes and decided that she did not mind if they fell asleep that way._

_But Grissom's voice pulled her from the creeping tendrils of impending slumber._

" _You didn't… the second time," he observed softly._

_Sara blinked against fatigue as his comment brought her back to the present. "I didn't," she acknowledged, "but…"_

_The recrimination in his voice clearly was not towards her but himself, "I wanted you to… again. I'm sorry."_

_Confusion blossomed anew and Sara answered urgently, "Don't say you're sorry. That was wonderful. You don't have to give me multiple orgasms every time we are together."_

" _I know," he whispered, but his tone betrayed him._

_A question suddenly sprang to Sara's mind, but she toyed with whether or not to pose it. Every time between them had been slow and gentle - achingly so, sometimes. Grissom held his passion in tight control, and he seemed to have certain goals in mind when they made love. For one, he always sought her climax first, as though his own was a mere afterthought. And if he saw the chance to bring her to that precipice again, he ignored his own need to do so._

_As well, he practiced such restraint that she worried for his blood pressure. Never did he grab her too tightly or push into her too fast or... too roughly._

_That was the word she needed._

" _Have you ever had… rough sex?" she asked quietly._

_The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. The easy, lustful mood between them had suddenly shattered, and she could feel uneasy tension in his body as he shifted so he could see her face._

_His expression betraying confusion, he said, "Why do you ask?"_

_Feeling embarrassed and afraid she might be making him self-conscious, Sara shook her head, "No reason. I… just forget I said anything, please."_

_This time, he sat up slightly with his head propped on his hand. "No, I don't want to forget it. I want to talk about it."_

_She could have laughed if not for the seriousness of the moment. Gil Grissom wanted to talk about an uncomfortable subject? Idly, Sara wondered if it was a full moon or if the planets had achieved some unusual alignment to mark such an occasion for the normally very un-talkative entomologist._

_Shaking her head at her impulsivity, Sara berated herself for ruining this moment between them. The last thing she had wanted was to make Grissom feel like his performance was anything other than exquisite. Rather, she simply felt a burning desire to ensure his needs were being met, and her own self doubts were to blame._

" _Sara," he prompted her again, waiting until she looked back at him. Once he had her attention, he continued, "The answer to your question is yes. When I was… younger. Much younger."_

_She waited, knowing well enough that eventually he would go on. A few moments later, he said, "I was with a girl, a woman. We didn't know each other well, but we found ourselves in the moment. I wasn't careful. She never told me to stop, and I wasn't experienced enough to realize she wasn't enjoying herself. Afterwards, I noticed there was blood on the sheets. That's how I found out she was a virgin."_

_Sara felt her heart drop into her stomach as she recognized the painful emotions crossing his face, the regret he clearly still harbored._

" _Sometimes that happens the first time," she offered reassuringly._

" _Yes, I know. But she was also… she never saw me again after that. Avoided my calls. Later on, a mutual friend of ours told me the truth, that I'd been too... rough. And inconsiderate." With a sigh, Grissom added, "Ever since then I've had a difficult time… getting excited, unless I know that who I'm with is experiencing pleasure."_

" _I'm sorry," she whispered. What for, she was not certain, but his story left her sad even though it gave her greater insight into his psyche._

_Avoiding her gaze, Grissom reflected, "I don't enjoy inflicting pain. But I've learned enough over the years to recognize that everyone has different needs and desires, and none of them are wrong so long as all parties are on the same page. So if you want or need something else…"_

_Her hand went to his lips of its own accord, both hushing him and drawing his attention._

" _You," she said, deliberately locking her eyes with his. "All I need is you."_

_She let her hand fall away, but he still looked at her with painful doubt. Hating that she was the cause of that doubt, Sara_ _forward and kissed him, passionately, and in the process pushed him onto his back with her partially atop of him this time._

_When they finally broke apart, she continued, "Gil, I don't want you to think I was asking because I don't enjoy the way we make love. I do. I…" She smiled in that way she sometimes did when she was about to make a painful admission. "I don't think anyone has ever loved me like you do. It isn't just sex between us. It is so much more."_

_Her words seemed to get through to him, and his expression softened. But he remained silent._

"But _I don't want you to think I'm made of glass or anything. You aren't going to hurt me."_

_Grissom's mood seemed restored as his eyes dropped to her lips. Moving swiftly, he rolled her over until she was halfway beneath him, their bodies once again entwined. Speaking softly as he moved to kiss her again, he said, "In that case, perhaps you wouldn't mind if I try for that second one after all..."_

* * *

Sitting at his desk, Ecklie looked over the tox report quickly before looking back up at the team members assembled in front of him. Technically, he had assigned day shift CSI's to continue the investigation of Grissom and Sara's case, but there was no point in keeping the others in the dark.

"They found chloroform in her blood samples," Ecklie noted. "Nothing in his."

Catherine and Brass sat in the chairs opposite his desk with Warrick slouched behind them.

"That doesn't mean Grissom used it on her," Catherine defended.

"And it doesn't mean he didn't, either. Listen, Willows, maybe we would have gotten the whole story from him if you hadn't told him to lawyer up. But as it is, he's gone back to total radio silence. And we're at square one."

"Sara wants to see him," Warrick put in. Like the other CSI's on the nightshift team, he refused to believe Grissom was guilty of harming her, regardless of both the evidence and the confession. "She told Nick that as the victim, she'll drop any charges against him."

"She doesn't get to make that choice," Ecklie threw back in clear annoyance. "She may be the victim, but the State of Nevada brings criminal charges. In the end, it's up to the District Attorney. And right now the DA's office isn't about to let Grissom walk, not with the amount of evidence against him."

"It all comes back to the evidence," Catherine remarked. Looking up at Brass and Warrick, she said, "How would Grissom approach this? I mean, the evidence would have us believe - what? He snapped? That suddenly after a romantic dinner and sex, he got up in the middle of the night and decided to torture Sara, intermittently attempting to kill himself, only to fail because the gun wasn't loaded?"

"But it was loaded," Brass pointed out. "Somehow, Sara got shot."

"So, what, Russian Roulette?" Ecklie interjected. "That's hardly Grissom's style."

"None of this is Grissom's style," grumbled Warrick. "The only thing that makes sense is him wanting to end it all rather than hurt Sara."

"Okay, what about the gun?" Catherine looked at Brass, but he shook his head.

"A 38 revolver. Archie said the serial number had been burned off. With acid. No chance of finding out where it came from."

"And there's no way to know if Grissom had GSR on his hands because of Sara's blood," Ecklie said with a sigh. Silence settled over the office as each thought desperately about what to do next. Finally, he began, "Listen folks, let's-"

Whatever Ecklie was about to say was lost as the telephone on Ecklie's desk rang. Glancing at the caller ID, he did even bother waving the others out of the room before answering it with a clipped acknowledgment.

"Yeah..." he said quietly, listening intently. Catherine exchanged glances with Brass, who simply shrugged. A few moments later, Ecklie ended the call with, "Okay, I'll send someone over. Thanks."

He placed the phone back in its cradle before looking up intently at the others. "That was the jail. An officer found Grissom in his cell. He'd tried to hang himself. They were able to revive him, and he's on his way to the hospital now."

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a trigger warning for discussion of attempted suicide.

"Sara, you can't get out of bed."

Greg had been the one to tell her. After Nick had stayed by her side for what felt like days, she had sent him home to get some rest as there seemed no need for him to waste his time watching her sleep most of the time. But when she woke up later, she could tell immediately from the late hour and Greg's expression that something had happened.

He delivered the news in a hushed and faltering voice, obviously shaken by his supervisor's actions.

Of all the people they could have ever imagined committing suicide, neither of them would have ever considered Grissom.

_Attempted_ suicide, Sara reminded herself. He was still alive.

As he'd been in isolation to protect him from potential retaliation by other inmates, there was no question he had been the one to strip the sheet of his bed and create a makeshift noose. And while no one knew exactly how long he had been without oxygen before he'd been found, Greg was able to report that he had been revived and taken to the hospital.

"I want to see him," Sara said, pulling the monitors off her body in haste. The rhythmic beeping morphed into mild alarms, and Sara knew the nurses would be there soon to stop her. But she _had_ to see him.

Unfortunately, when she tried to sit up, the pain hit her like a wave on the breakers, overwhelming everything. Dark slivers crawled across her vision, threatening to pull her into a blackout, so Sara relented. With shallow, faltering breaths, she fell back the few inches to the pillow, gasping in agony.

"Sara-"

Greg was already by her side, reaching for her hands. But at the sight of the splints on her fingers, he hesitated. Even through her own inner turmoil, she recognized that expression in his eyes, the hesitation.

The doubt.

He was wondering if Grissom really was responsible. He was wondering how the man he'd looked up to for so many years as a mentor could be capable of breaking Sara's fingers. And in light of Grissom's attempt to take his own life, it seemed even more likely he _had_ done everything they were saying.

"It must have all been too much for him," Sara told her friend softly. Greg's forehead wrinkled in confusion, and she went on, "Grissom doesn't hurt others. He simply isn't capable of it. But for some reason, he had to do it, and the guilt must be tearing him apart."

"How do you know he didn't just, I don't know, lose his mind?" Greg asked. "We have all seen some pretty horrible stuff. Sometimes people just... snap."

Before she could answer, the nurses appeared just as she knew they would. With scolding words, they reattached her monitors and administered her next dose of pain medication. The brief respite allowed Sara to formulate a response to her friend's question. She knew as well as anyone how continued stress trauma could lead someone to do something utterly irrevocable. She had seen it first-hand the night her father had beaten her mother one last time before...

With a sigh, Sara pushed away the thought. Grissom's actions that night weren't because he had snapped. Rather, his current breakdown was a direct result of being forced to harm her.

"He didn't lose his mind. He was completely in control," she told the other CSI. "But if you had seen him… He was so full of... 'revulsion' is the best description I can think of, for what he was doing. And when the gun didn't fire that first time..."

Sara found herself unable to complete the statement, but that memory allowed her to understand why he might try to take his own life now.

Greg said nothing, but he did reach across to gently take her hand, the one with the IV. The medication had begun to make everything dull again, and Sara could feel sleep coming for her. But she fought against it, knowing even though she could not go to Grissom now that she needed to speak to him as soon as possible. If no one else was willing or able to make him understand, _she_ had to.

"I need to see him, Greg, to talk to him. He needs to know I don't blame him for any of it, that he's as much a victim as I am. Probably more."

"Sara, I don't know what I can do-"

"Greg," she stopped him, squeezing his hand hard enough for him to yelp. "I don't care if I have to fight off every nurse in this hospital and drag myself through the halls until I find him, but I _need_ to see him."

* * *

Catherine needed some rest, she knew. The past few days since she'd gotten the call to Grissom's house had been a blur of cat naps between cases and trying to figure out how to get Grissom to talk. As it stood, she would be expected back on duty in six hours time, giving her little enough time for a few hours sleep or to see Lindsey. But as she watched over the man sleeping in the hospital bed beside her, Catherine knew she could not leave yet.

When he moaned, it actually startled her. After his near total silence, seeing any reaction from him - even while asleep - caught her attention.

He moaned again, this time shaking his head in his sleep.

"No…" he mumbled, pleading like a little boy. "Please, no…"

Realizing he was in the grip of a nightmare, Catherine leaned forward.

"Please, please, no. I'll do anything… please…"

"Gil," she whispered, hoping to wake him gently from the bad dream. But her voice only intensified whatever was happening in his unconscious state. He suddenly thrashed violently to one side, but the sheriff deputy had left his wrist handcuffed to the side of the bed, and the sudden movement wrenched his arm painfully.

Catherine reached but before she could touch him, Grissom sat straight up, torn into wakefulness as he let out a piercing yell.

His breath coming out in ragged gasps, he looked around the bare white walls of the hospital room blindly, as if still seeing something which was not there.

Slowly, she reached out and put her hand over his, the one which was cuffed. "Gil, it's me. You're okay. You were just having a nightmare."

He breathed heavily for a moment before turning to stared at her. When he moved his hand away from hers reflexively, the cuff again brought him up short and he sighed miserably.

"I'm still in it," he remarked morosely.

Regarding him for a long moment, Catherine studied his manner. He seemed a little more like himself, strangely enough, no longer dead eyed and still.

"They found you... well, you tried to kill yourself, Gil," she remarked bluntly. Part of her expected him to retreat back into himself, to return to whatever mental hell he had been in to make such a choice . But he surprised her.

"I know it was cowardly. But I couldn't think of any other way make it stop."

Tilting her head to the side, Catherine asked, "Make what stop?"

Grissom did not meet her eyes as he spoke, and the fact that he was opening up at all was so out of character that she listened intently to each word.

"Whenever I close my eyes, I hear her muffled screams," he confessed quietly. "I see her blood on my hands. And her eyes… The way she looked at me, Catherine, I don't think I can ever..."

He took a shuddering breath before falling silent again.

"Sara doesn't blame you," Catherine told him. "She knows someone else was there. Someone forced you to do those things to her."

"Did she see someone?" he asked, a spark of hope in his tone.

Wishing she had a different answer for him, she answered, "No."

"There were headphones over her ears. She couldn't have heard anything."

Catherine regarded him for a long time before agreeing, "She didn't."

"Then how does she know?" Grissom asked, presenting the question like one of his usual supervisor riddles. But this time, there was no amusement or light in his eyes, only resigned sadness.

"Because she knows you. She knows you would never hurt her… except to save her."

Grissom surprised Catherine again by twisting his mouth into a wry smirk. But just as swiftly as it came upon him, it melted away again, replaced by an expression of haunted guilt.

"I… don't think she ever really doubted me. She didn't try to plead with me, even through her eyes. All I saw there was... understanding. Love. She loved me even as I was…" He cringed and looked away from Catherine, "...as I was hurting her. She tried so hard not to scream, and I'm sure she was holding back to spare me."

When he stopped speaking, Catherine waited. After enough time had passed that she knew he would not continue further unless prompted, she said, "Sara told us that you put a gun to your head and pulled the trigger."

He looked up at her but only nodded.

"It was a 38 revolver. Six chambers, one bullet," he stated calmly. "Or so I was told."

"Only one bullet," Catherine confirmed. "The one which hit Sara."

He took a deep breath, held it until his lungs burned, and then let it out in painful rasp.

"Those were the only times she fought or screamed - when I had the gun. She fought her bonds and tried so hard to stop me."

Catherine nodded thoughtfully.

"She loves you."

"And it was that love which very nearly killed her," he lamented angrily, although the emotion seemed more directed at himself. "I don't know who it was, Catherine. A woman's voice, but I didn't recognize it. She had a gun and threatened to kill Sara if I didn't follow her instructions. I still don't know who she was, but she had to be there because of me, because of some case I worked, some loved one I sent away to prison. Nothing else makes sense. It was like Natalie Davis all over again."

"So someone else was there, like we suspected from the beginning. A woman," Catherine remarked. Slowly, carefully, she asked, "Are you ready to tell me what really happened?"

Grissom remarked with evident melancholy, "Not really. But I suppose I should anyway."

He recounted the specifics slowly, in a voice thick with emotion. But the more he spoke, the easier it seemed to be to go on, and quickly he outlined his memory of that night, careful to include each detail as it came to mind.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a trigger warning for violence/torture.

_Grissom awoke with a start, feeling a distinct feeling of uneasiness. Reaching a hand out for Sara in the bed beside him, he found nothing but cold sheets and her lingering scent. The wine had caused him to sleep harder than usual, he decided, so he must not have felt her get out of bed. But a glance at the clock revealed she was not due in to work for hours yet._

_The odd feeling persisted, even though Grissom assumed she must have gotten up to go to the bathroom. But the light was off and the door open, so…_

_Perhaps she could not sleep and had gone into the living room? She did that sometimes, when the ghosts from their job stole into her dreams._

_Still... something was not quite right._

_"Sara?" he called, rolling out of bed. He checked the bathroom just to be sure then made his way out to the living room. His townhouse was small but comfortable, the divided areas allowing for intimacy and a sense of privacy without too much wasted space._

_When she did not respond back to him, Grissom's uneasiness grew even more. Suddenly, he heard a sound coming from the back of the house. He had never particularly needed a garage for his vehicle, but taking advantage of the extra square footage, he had removed the garage door and enclosed the area. After the local homeowners' association complained about late night experiments, he had added some sound proofing to keep the noise level down._

_But as he approached, Grissom noticed that the door leading into the garage was open. While the room was still dark, he sensed something was wrong. Sara still had not responded and he doubted she would have left the townhouse without telling him._

_"Sara?" he said cautiously as he stepped into the room._

_But as Grissom reached for the light, he felt the cold mussel of a gun against the back of his neck._

_"No sudden moves or both of you die."_

_The voice sounded feminine, but deliberately deep, as though the person were attempting to disguise their voice._

_"Where is Sara?" he demanded, fighting against a burgeoning panic._

_In response, the woman shoved him into the room before turning on the garage light behind him. As his eyes caught sight of Sara in the center of the room, bound to one of his kitchen chairs with rope, some part of his brain registered the sound of the door to the house closing behind them._

_He glanced back, but getting a look at the woman who now held them captive only heightened his anxiety. She wore a mask - some sort of plastic Halloween atrocity involving a cross between a pirate and a zombie and an octopus. She also dressed in all black with a hoodie covering her hair and black leather gloves on both hands._

_"Doctor Grissom, I suggest you pay more attention to your paramour than me. She is the one who will die if you do not obey my every command."_

_At this, she turned the gun towards Sara, who was obviously unconscious. For the first time, Grissom noticed that beside the chair Sara was tied to stood the folding table he kept stored in the garage. It stood open, with a variety of items on it. Moving closer, he took stock of the collection the intruder had put together. As he did so, the feeling in the pit of his stomach twisted with growing horror._

_Knives - several of them. He recognized them from his kitchen. The cheese grater. The lighter from his grill. Various hooks from his fishing kit. The only item he did not recognize from his own home was a revolver._

_The intruder must have noticed him eyeing the gun because she suddenly stated, "It only has one bullet. And if you touch it before I say so, she'll be dead before you even try to get off a shot."_

_Nodding his understanding, Grissom looked back at Sara. His beautiful, resourceful, intelligent girlfriend was still unconscious, and he wondered how the masked woman had ensured she remain so. In addition to being tied to the chair with rope, there were headphones over her ears, held into place with some sort of stretchy material which also held Sara's head to the chair. Leaning closer, he could make out a dim sound coming from the headphones. Static, perhaps. A long piece of duct tape was across her mouth._

" _White noise," the intruder confirmed. "That's rule number one. She can't hear you, so don't speak to her. Rule number two: don't speak to me. Do not give her any indication I am here at all. If you do, she dies. Actually, you will die first, and then she will follow after a very long… painful acquaintance with the instruments on that table."_

_Taking a deep breath, Grissom looked back at the table, processing what the woman had said and what all of it meant._

" _If you think I'm going to let you use any of these to hurt Sara..."_

_"Oh, you aren't going to_ let _me do anything. You'll be the star of the show this evening..."_

_He opened his mouth to question her, but the he stopped as her meaning became clear._

_"I won't harm her," he asserted. "You might as well kill me now."_

_"And what of Sara?" the woman asked, drawing out the name. "Are you willing to sacrifice her life as well?"_

_He said nothing, and the intruder regarded him for a long moment, the eyes behind the mask never breaking from his gaze. He knew that she had him. While no threat to himself would be enough to force him down this gruesome road, Sara's safety was paramount. Whatever he needed to do to keep her alive, he would have to do, even if it meant harming her in the process._

_"_ _Doctor Grissom, I have no desire for Sara Sidle to die today. She will only die if you refuse my commands. And believe me, she would not want me to be the one doing what you are about to do."_

" _And what, exactly, am I about to do?"_

" _You're about to conduct an experiment. Isn't that what you scientists types enjoy? Oh, but perhaps you're familiar with the old execution method, death by a thousand paper cuts?"_

_His teeth clenched automatically and he forced himself to relax enough to respond, "I thought you said you didn't want Sara dead."_

" _Oh, I don't. I doubt we'll get to a thousand cuts anyhow. But I never said she wouldn't experience pain. Now, wake her up."_

* * *

"I had to... strike her... to get her to come around," Grissom went on while Catherine listened. She noticed his hesitation as he spoke, the guilt bleeding into his voice like cheap dye. "That first moment - she was still so groggy and confused. It took a little while for her to realize what was happening. And by then, I had already been told to start."

Catherine put her hand on his arm. "You don't have to share every detail of this part, Gil. I saw the pictures they took of Sara at the hospital."

Letting out a pained sigh, he nodded in relief. Eventually, he forced himself to continue the narrative.

"It went on for a long time. Hours, certainly, but it felt like a lifetime. We went to bed after midnight. I don't remember when I woke up but it was before dawn."

"The 911 call from your neighbor came in at about noon."

"So, at least 6 hours," Grissom estimated.

"Did the woman give any indication why she was doing this? Why she chose you and Sara? Or if it was just random?"

Grissom shook his head. "She never said. But I think we were chosen on purpose. I quickly deduced that she wanted Sara to believe I was acting on my own. Hence the headphones and keeping her tied to the chair so she could not look around. She wanted Sara to believe it was me, and then for me to commit suicide in front of her with no evidence of a third party."

Her eyebrows drew into a V as Catherine narrowed her eyes at him in confusion. "Then how did Sara get shot?"

This time, Grissom met her question with equal confusion. "Sara didn't tell you?"

"She didn't remember much about that part. She said it was all hazy by that point."

"I had wondered about that," he admitted. "It was the only time she had the opportunity to see the masked woman. And Sara was the one who set things in motion."

* * *

_Sweat beaded his brow as Grissom set the lighter down on the table. He turned away from Sara so she wouldn't see the the tears as they began to make silent rivers down his cheek. Using his perspiration as an opportunity to wipe his face dry, he employed the sleeve of his t-shirt for the task. He had managed to get blood smears everywhere else, and the last thing he wanted was for Sara to see blood on his face._

_He did not want her to worry about him._

_The thought kicked him in the gut and not for the first time, Grissom eyed the gun on the table. Two shots already and the revolver had six chambers. That meant there was a 25% chance that the round was in the next chamber. And that deduction, of course, could only be trusted if he believed the intruder was telling the truth. He felt it just as likely that the gun was empty and all of the "suicide attempts" staged for Sara's benefit were just that - theater._

_And what a horrendous, macabre theater it was at that. Despite the pain he had been inflicting on her for hours,_ _Sara had done her best not to react. Part of him wondered at that, but he was also grateful as well._

_No, she only screamed when he put the gun to his head, Grissom thought to himself for perhaps the hundredth time. She held back her pain every other time, only letting out dull moans during the worst moments. Like when he'd broken her fingers. Or when he had cut her face or skinned her leg. Or burned her foot._

_Cringing with inner agony, he looked down at his hands, each of them smeared with her blood, and he thought about how it must have felt for her. He fantasized darkly that if they survived this ordeal, he would like her to take a sledgehammer to his hands. If she swung hard enough, she might break enough bones to permanently cripple him. It would be fitting justice…_

_No, he mentally corrected himself. Sara would never harm him. It went against her nature in every way. Grissom felt a wave of new tears coming as he reminded himself that he once, he had believed the same about himself, that he was incapable of hurting Sara._

_But clearly, he was quite capable._

_Besides, Grissom decided dismissively, he had every intention of ending his life if he somehow made it out of that garage alive. The realization had hit him after he'd cut her deeply for the first time, when the masked woman had instructed him to run a knife's edge down the side of Sara's face. Sara had forced herself not to move as blood followed the blade down that long, deep line, and Grissom knew the wound would leave a permanent scar._

_A scar on Sara's face as well as on her heart. And he had put it there._

_In that moment, he knew that the Gil Grissom who had made love to Sara earlier that night was now dead. All that remained was an empty shell of guilt, regret, and rage. Rage at not only the masked woman standing behind Sara with a gun aimed at her skull, but also at himself for not finding a way out. For all his intelligence and intellect, he had once more failed the woman he loved. Once more, because of_ him _and his inadequacies, she suffered._

" _You need to re-tie her foot," the woman commanded, breaking through his self recriminations._

_Grissom swallowed, not quite ready to face Sara again._ _He had needed to untie one of her legs to get to the sole of her foot, the sole which was now adorned with half a dozen second degree burns from his barbecue lighter. The smell of her scorched flesh still lingered in the air, and he suddenly understood with aching clarity Sara's switch to a vegetarian diet._

" _I need a moment to collect myself," he said told the woman quietly, using his sleeve to wipe at his eyes again. He knew he dare not speak when Sara could see his face, but with his back turned to her, he could communicate with their captor._

" _I never expected the great Doctor Grissom to be such a cry-baby," the woman said snidely, but she did not repeat her directive._

" _Isn't it time for another round with the revolver?" he said, biting back whatever witty insult he might have mustered under normal circumstances._

_There was a touch of humor in her reply. "Ready to end it all so soon?"_

_With every ounce of his soul, Grissom longed for death. He desperately wished for an earthquake or a sudden tornado or anything at all which would end this terrible torture session. He had looked into Sara's eyes too many times while simultaneously mutilating her flesh. What was going through her mind? Did she think he had lost his senses and resorted to some base, sadistic instinct? Or did she suspect the truth? Either way, it did not really matter. He already knew how this would end._

_Eventually, he would arrive at that bullet during this horrendous game of Russian Roulette, and Sara would watch his brains explode out of the side of his head. The intruder would escape, leaving Sara to suffer silently as she stared at his dead body until someone found her. Would his amateur soundproofing be enough to muffle the loud crack of a gunshot? Obviously, it had kept Sara's infrequent screams from alerting his neighbors to what was going on. Or perhaps they simply assumed it was another of his strange "experiments" and had dismissed the sounds._

_Regardless, someone would come eventually when Sara did not show up for work. They would free her, and CSI's would be called to the scene. And every bit of evidence they found would say he acted alone. His would be the only fingerprints. Sara would have to tell them that she never saw anyone else. The only thing in the garage which was not from his own home was the gun, and he had already seen that the serial numbers were burned off. Another dead end._

_At best, Sara would live the rest of her life believing he had willingly tortured her before committing suicide. At worse, she would realize that he had been coerced and she would blame herself for something which was entirely_ his _fault. Like Natalie Davis, the captor obviously had some beef with him to put them through such torture._

_But Sara..._

_Grissom had often worried about Sara's mental health. Some mornings, before they had begun their relationship, he had stayed up late, concerned that if he went to sleep, he would be awakened to a call telling him she had eaten her own gun. That fear had largely abated in recent years when he could reach out and find her sleeping next to him, but now it came flaring back._

_If the intruder was truthful and she left Sara alive, how would his death impact her in the long run? If she learned to hate him for what he had done to her and felt relief at his passing, then perhaps she could move on with her life. But if she suspected the truth, it might destroy her._

_Regardless, this trauma would be with her always._

_Selfishly, he wished he had one last opportunity to tell her how he felt. He wished he could give her a sign, some indication to let her know he loved her more than life itself and he wanted her to find as much happiness as she possibly could. Ironically, considering all the times in their past when he'd found himself unable to express his feelings for her, in this moment, the words wanted to flow from his lips like a river._

" _It's time. Pick up the gun."_

_The woman's command startled him out of his thoughts, and with barely a second of hesitation, Grissom did as she stated. The revolver felt heavy in his hand, weighed down by the act of finality he suspected it was about to impart. Schooling his face into a mask of impassivity, he put the muzzle to his temple and turned toward Sara._

_Suddenly, something occurred to him, and he decided on the action without pausing to give it any deliberation. His left hand, which hung limply at his side, formed into a sign. His index finger and thumb made an L. His middle and ring fingers curled downward, leaving the pinkie exposed._ _It was one he had taught Sara on one of their dates, so she would recognize it._ _He remembered tracing the letters out on Sara's hand as she smiled widely at him, the closest he had been able to saying those words to her out loud. "The pinkie is for I. L is for love. And U for you."_

_He moved his fingers casually, all the while keeping his gaze on Sara. The the two prior instances when he had put the gun to his head, he had shut his eyes. But he wanted this time to be different if it was indeed his final moment on earth. He wanted Sara to know he was not a madman and that he loved her with the depths of his soul._

_Sara's eyes lowered to his hand immediately, and a second later they darted back to his face. She understood his sign, he could tell. But just as he pulled the hammer back on the gun, preparing it to fire, Sara did something he wasn't expecting._

_Pulling her leg up - the one he had forgotten to re-bind after burning her foot - she kicked him, HARD, making contact with his knee._

_Grissom went down, his body crashing into the table covered in torture instruments, sending everything scattering across the floor. The gun slipped from his hand, skittering away from him. And in a flash, the masked woman went after it. Sensing an opportunity, Grissom threw himself across the floor in an attempt to reach it before she did._

_Both of their hands grasped the cold metal it at the same time._

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

"We struggled over the gun. It all happened so fast. I don't know who actually pulled the trigger."

Grissom sounded utterly spent as he recounted those final moments of the ordeal.

"And that's how Sara was hit?" Catherine confirmed.

Nodding grimly, he closed his eyes. "One terrible fluke shot. The woman… she ran off. I didn't even notice she'd gone, I was so focused on Sara. I used one of the knives on the floor to cut the ropes, and I lowered her to the floor. I don't remember what I used to try and stop the bleeding. A towel, maybe?"

Catherine nodded. "We found a towel at the scene."

"And you know the rest."

He started to make a gesture with his hands, but the cuffs once again pulled him up short, jangling against the metal bar of the hospital bed.

"Why didn't you tell us all this when we brought you in?" Catherine asked, incredulous. "You didn't say a word. Not for hours."

With a shrug, Grissom answered, "I barely remember anything before I heard Sara was alive. I assumed when they took her in the ambulance that there was no way she would make it. I think after everything that happened... I just shut down."

"But then, in the interrogation room, you confessed to everything."

His eyebrows flexed with confusion, and he turned to her. His face was full of disappointment, like a supervisor about to fail one of his key students.

"I am guilty, Catherine," he told her slowly, emphasizing each word. "Everything I admitted to doing, I did."

"But... you were coerced."

"That only matters if I care about clearing my name. And I don't."

Catherine's mouth gaped open for a moment as she struggled to comprehend his statement.

Going on, Grissom said, "All the evidence was going to point to me. If I tried to escape prosecution by saying I did it all at gunpoint, where would that leave things? Sara would have to testify at trial against me. She would have to re-live every moment of it, over and over again, explaining it to the police and the DA. She's already going to have nightmares for the rest of her life, Catherine, not to mention whatever physical scars I've left her. How could I do that to her?"

"So... you would just stay silent and go to prison?"

"To protect Sara? I put a gun to my head three times, Catherine. Of course I would go to prison. I _deserve_ to go to prison. And besides, I never expected..." He trailed off, looking away from her.

He never expected to live long enough for it to matter.

Deliberately, Catherine shook her head back and forth, her hair swishing with the motion.

"You don't deserve to go to prison, Gil. You did the only thing you could to keep Sara alive."

"I broke her fingers," he reminded his colleague, his voice growing thick with emotion. "I burned her with a lighter. I cut her face so deeply, I'm sure it will leave a scar, even if she bothers to see a plastic surgeon. I cut her…" Words failed him for a few seconds until Grissom forced himself to go on. "I cut her 112 times, Catherine. One hundred and twelve. And then I shot her in the stomach."

"And none of that was your choice."

Even as she made the statement, she knew Grissom would not accept it. The voluntariness of his actions did not matter to him, only that he had done them. His motive was lost in a sea of guilt and regret and along with it, any desire for self preservation.

"If she had never met me, if I had never come into her life, none of this would have happened. If I hadn't started a relationship with her, she would have been safe. That woman wanted to punish _me_ , so she forced me to hurt Sara. I am responsible for what happened, in every way."

Something about his impassioned statement sent a red flag up in Catherine's mind, and she froze in thought.

"What if you weren't the one that woman was after?" she speculated. "Maybe all of this was intended to get at Sara."

"How do you figure?"

"Stay with me here but... if things had progressed the way the woman intended, you would have spent hours... doing all those things... only for Sara to watch you kill yourself. Sara's perception was very important in all this. She wanted her to believe _you_ were a sadistic maniac, the man Sara loves, has loved forever."

The way Grissom's eyes widened, she knew her observation had gotten his attention and piqued his curiosity. For the first time since it had all began, he looked like his former self again.

"But if Sara was the target…"

The fear in his eyes brought her to her feet, and Catherine was already halfway towards the door. But just as she reached for the handle, she turned back.

Understanding her hesitation, Grissom assured her, "I won't try again. Just make sure Sara is safe."

* * *

"She's asleep."

Greg spoke the quiet assurance into his cell phone as he watched over Sara's still form in the hospital bed.

**"Stay with her. Brass is going to have an officer stationed outside her room, but until they get there, make sure no one except medical staff go in and out."**

"No problem, Catherine," Greg told her. "I'll just be glad to have help keeping her in her room. She's been threatening to discharge herself - obviously against medical advice - so she can go see Grissom. I finally convinced her that she'd never make it seeing as how he's in a hospital across town and she was just shot two days ago."

**"Just the same, keep your guard up,"** the older CSI warned him. **"I'm heading back over to Grissom's place to see if I can find anything we might have missed."**

"Are you sure you should do that? I thought Ecklie took you off the case."

**"Yeah, but this is Grissom and Sara we're talking about. I'm less concerned with whether stuff holds up in court and more worried about this bitch finishing what she started."**

"Keep me updated," Greg requested before ending the call.

As he turned around, he noticed that Sara was awake.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"Catherine."

"Did she see him?"

Greg smiled, his usual goofy grin, and he sat down on the bed next to her. "She did. She said no brain damage that she could tell. And Grissom finally told her everything."

Sara's expression remained intent and serious. "There was someone else there," she stated matter-of-factly. It was not a question.

"Yeah. Grissom thinks it was a woman. But she wore a mask and a hood, so he never saw what she looked like. Catherine called to say she was having an armed guard put on your door, just in case."

"She thinks whoever this was will come and try to finish the job? That doesn't make any sense. Grissom's the one she was trying to destroy."

"Actually…"

Greg briefly explained the theory Catherine had relayed to him over the phone, that Sara was actually the target. He could see her working through things like a puzzle, her face betraying each new emotion as she experienced it.

"So all of that was to get back at me?" she asked, the question obviously rhetorical. "Grissom was in pure hell. That was for my benefit? Not just to hurt me physically but to destroy the one person I really hold dear in front of my eyes."

At a loss for what to say, Greg gently patted her leg. When she winced slightly, he pulled his hand back. "Sorry, I forgot," he apologized, remembering too late that she had cuts all over her body. "Honestly, I don't know what I would do had I been in Grissom's shoes."

Sara pierced him with a sharp look. "Well, he only had two choices. Let her put a bullet in my skull - and probably his - or do whatever she told him to, all the while waiting for an opportunity to take her out."

"So… you forgive him?" Greg ventured.

"There's nothing to forgive," she shot back angrily.

Unable to help himself, he persisted. "Sara, you can't deny that he did… torture you."

To emphasize his point, he brought his hand up to gently brush against her cheek, just to the side of the sutured cut on her face. She immediately shook her head, and he pulled back his hand.

"I know you haven't seen Grissom display a lot of emotion over the years, so you can't possibly imagine how he looked but… Greg, he was in agony. Every moment. His hands shook. He could barely meet my eyes, but he forced himself. I tried not to react because when I did… it was like he had been pierced through the heart."

"Sara-" he began.

"And let me tell you something else. Aside from the GSW, everything he did was minor. Most of these cuts will heal in a few weeks. The smallest fingers on my non-dominant hand." She held up her left hand to display the splinted fingers. "Deepest cut on my body," she went on, pointing to the stitches in the side of her face. "And a few second degree burns on one of my feet," she finished. "Everything is superficial. If he had _wanted_ to hurt me, don't you think it would have been worse?"

Unable to form a reply, Greg simply nodded his head in acceptance of Sara's feelings. Within a few minutes, there was a knock on the door followed by a nurse entering the room.

"Shift change?" Greg asked, not recognizing the nurse as one who had been in to tend to Sara over the previous several hours.

The woman simply gave him a hummed affirmative before turning her attention to Sara's readouts. Greg watched as she reviewed the cardiac readout which had collected on a long ream of thin paper next to the machine.

"Are you ready for your next dose of pain medicine?" she asked Sara.

"I'd really rather stay awake for a while. I feel like I'm sleeping my life away," the injured woman responded.

"Better to stay ahead of the pain," the nurse advised her.

"She's right," Greg agreed.

Grudgingly, Sara nodded her ascent.

Greg watched as the nurse pulled a vial from her scrubs pocket along with a pre-packaged packaged needle. He had only been with Sara for part of the day, but he recalled that the previous nurse had gone to get her medication and come back. As well, the vial was different than before, the color inside a more amber hue than the clear liquid earlier.

"Um…" Greg began, suddenly conscious that the nurse did not have a name tag like the other hospital workers he had seen. "I'm going to need to see some-"

Wherever she had been keeping it - perhaps the waistband of her scrubs - the woman pulled out a gun and pointed it at him. Time suddenly slowed down as Greg found himself literally looking down a barrel of the firearm, just feet away from his friend who was unable to do anything, confined in her hospital bed.

"You aren't going to need to see anything," the woman said, motioning him towards the chair on the other side of Sara's bed. "No sudden moves or this gets very ugly very quickly."

Then the woman turned her attention to Sara.

"I don't know you," the female CSI observed softly.

"But I know you," she shot back. "You're the one who destroyed my entire world."

"And so you thought you'd return the favor?" Sara asked, sounding much calmer than Greg felt.

"It's unfortunate that you messed things up. You were supposed to watch your paramour die in front of your eyes. Now I'll just have to settle for your death."

Greg spoke up from his chair across the bed. "You pull that trigger and twenty hospital workers will be in this room before you can say boo."

"Do you really think so?" the woman responded. "Because with all the mass shootings lately, I think they'll go in the other direction. Besides-" she added, turning back to Sara, "a gunshot wound is just so… redundant, isn't it?"

With that, she took the needle in her other hand and moved to jab it into Sara's arm. Greg threw himself across the bed at the same time Sara tried to roll away. The resulting scuffle lasted only a few seconds, but ended with Sara taking the controller which she used to adjust her bed and collide it with the side of their attacker's head. The sudden movement brought with it an explosion of pain as Sara felt something in her fragile abdomen tear.

But thankfully, the commotion spooked their attacker, and the woman took that opportunity to slip out of the room.

"Greg, are you o-" she began to ask, but then stopped. As she turned her head to look at her friend, she noticed the needle the nurse imposter had filled was stuck in the side of Greg's arm. About half of the liquid in the syringe was gone.

"I wonder what…" he began, looking down at it, and then his eyes rolled up and he fainted across the bed on top of her.

"Help!" Sara screamed as loud as she could manage, pressing the "Nurse" button on her remote repeatedly. "We need some help in here!"

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for mention of domestic violence.

Catherine Willows sat in Ecklie's office, the dark shadows under her eyes betraying a severe lack of sleep in the prior days. Beside her, Nick seemed far more rested but no less concerned.

"I thought I told you to stay off this case, Willows," the CSI Director stated severely.

"With all due respect," she answered, her tone dripping with disgust, "when you have three members of your team in the hospital, then you can lecture me on protocol."

Ecklie ignored the jab and instead asked, "How is Greg?"

"He'll be okay. She injected him with antifreeze, but they were able to give him the antidote right away. He's still puking his guts out, but there shouldn't be any long term effects."

Nodding thoughtfully, he followed up, "And what else have you found?"

Catherine glanced at Nick and then back. "We've been looking into Sara's old cases to see if he can find a connection."

Nick interjected, "We weren't getting very far until I got the security tape from the hospital. We think the woman who attacked Sara and Greg is Brenda Waters. Sara worked on a case five years ago where Brenda's husband Dan Waters was arrested for sexual assault of another woman. It went all the way to trial and Sara testified. Dan went to prison for three years. From what we know, Brenda stayed by his side through it all and never believed the charges. But when he got out of prison, he started getting abusive with her."

Putting a file in front of Ecklie, Nick went on, "There were multiple police reports showing escalating domestic abuse. He basically used her as a punching bag, but she never pressed charges. And then, about three months ago, he committed suicide."

Catherine picked up the narrative. "He tied her to a chair, tortured her for hours, and then he put a gun to his head and killed himself in front of her."

The familiarity of the circumstances were not lost on the supervisor. His eyes narrowing, Ecklie demanded, "Why did that MO not come up when you first started investigating?"

With a shrug, the female CSI stated, "Dan Waters' death wasn't flagged as a homicide, and the case was closed. Nick didn't find it until we started looking at Sara's old cases."

"Well, you have this Brenda Waters dead to rights on the attack on Sara and Greg, but there's still no connection to Grissom's house," Ecklie pointed out. "As of now, the evidence still points to him."

Catherine and Nick both began to protest, but he held up his hands. "I'm not saying I believe it, especially in light of these... new developments. But the DA is going to want more than circumstantial evidence before dropping the charges against Grissom."

"So where does that leave us?" Nick demanded.

Ecklie glanced at Catherine, and she tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. "What does Grissom always say? Follow the evidence."

* * *

As they walked through Grissom's house, Catherine noticed that the coppery scent of blood in the air had abated some but was still present. She wrinkled her nose knowing the source of that blood was her co-worker.

"Where do you want to start?" Nick asked.

"I've been over the garage with a fine-toothed comb, but you're welcome to take another go at it."

He paused in thought. "Well, that's where all the action took place. But weren't all the knives and things on the table from around Grissom's house? Brenda Waters must have collected them before Grissom woke up."

Nodding thoughtfully, Catherine observed, "So she was all over this house. And she'd have had to go outside to get the lighter. Grissom said he keeps it next to the grill."

"Start there," Nick agreed as he set off for the kitchen in search of any other evidence.

As Catherine stepped outside, she felt the familiar press of desert heat and wondered why anyone would want to cook outside next to a giant open furnace in such weather. But Grissom's grill looked relatively unused, having collected a fine layer of dust since he had pulled it out last. Next to the grill was a small table with a case likely containing various grilling implements. Crouching down, Catherine could make out the faint void in the dust which matched the general size and shape of the lighter they had found in the garage.

She might not have noticed it had she not dropped down into a lower position, but as soon as she did, Catherine's attention was drawn to something else. The grill was tucked into a small alcove on the back of Grissom's patio, and what she had initially dismissed as shadow was actually coal dust and ashes.

And right in the middle of those ashes, where one would likely step to reach for where the lighter had been, was one recent, perfectly preserved footprint.

"Gotcha," Catherine stated with a grin.

* * *

The emergency surgery to repair the sutures in her abdomen had gone well, the doctors reported to her when she woke up again. Thankfully, most of the damage was superficial and would not delay her recovery further. But no one would give her any information about Greg, citing privacy concerns. By the time Nick came to check on her several hours later, Sara's worry had grown from a steady simmer into a growing panic.

"Where's Greg?" Sara demanded by way of greeting as soon as he entered her hospital room.

"Greg's okay," Nick assured her quickly. "He spent most of the night revisiting everything he'd eaten in the previous 12 hours, but they're saying it was a small enough dose that he shouldn't have any lasting effects."

Sara sighed in relief. "Either she didn't know what she was doing, or the attack was a ploy."

"Well, I wouldn't say that. Injecting antifreeze into the arm of a healthy person is a very different matter from putting it into the IV of someone recovering from a major abdominal injury. Plus I'm sure she didn't expect to get caught so quickly."

Nodding, Sara glanced out the window. Her heart hurt to think about Greg and what he'd been put through because of her.

_Just like Gil_ , she reminded herself. _He would have died to protect you._

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Grissom standing there with that gun to his head. For one long moment, he met her gaze, and she could tell from the shadows in his eyes that he was engulfed by shame and guilt. Gone was the Gil Grissom she knew, replaced by a broken man willing to do _anything_ to keep her safe. And that 'anything' included taking his own life.

The thought tortured her conscience as she wondered what about herself could possibly be worth the lives of two good and honorable men like Gil and Greg. While logic assured her that it was not her fault, that this Brenda Waters was to blame, part of her felt a rekindling of doubt, of unworthiness.

"Assuming it's a match, is a shoe print enough to get Grissom out of jail?" Sara asked, trying to push such thoughts away.

"I don't know," Nick admitted. "We already had a warrant for Brenda's apartment and Warrick is bagging all her shoes now. So we'll see what we find."

"But it places her at Grissom's house."

"It's the _only_ thing that places her there."

Sara sighed and shook her head in frustration.

Ever since the attack in the hospital, a uniform had been stationed outside her room and anyone coming in and out, including medical personnel, was required to show ID and have it confirmed prior to entry. While Sara had tried to convince the doctor to discharge her so she could recuperate at home, the answer had been an unequivocal negative. Everyone seemed to want her to stay in the hospital under lock and key.

"Look, I know you want to get out of here and see Grissom," Nick began, "but we've got to do this thing right."

"Do this thing right?" she echoed angrily. "Grissom tried to hang himself in jail. And they're taking him back there. Who's to say he won't try again?"

Nick shrugged. "He promised Catherine he wouldn't."

With a huff, Sara muttered, "He promised Catherine…"

"Look, if we can convince the DA, they'll drop the charges on Grissom and he'll be released. We just have to be-"

"Did they ever even set bond?" she asked suddenly.

Shrugging one shoulder, Nick remarked, "Does it matter? He doesn't seem that keen to be set free."

Sara growled, balling up her hands in fists. The motion pulled at the IV in her right hand and the splints on her left, which only served to irritate her further.

"Sara…" her friend warned.

"He isn't responsible. I've already told everyone this. Why can't they just let him out?"

The Texan flashed her a grim but understanding smile. "You know how these things work, Sara. They aren't going to let go of a high-profile suspect unless they can nail someone else for the crime."

"But he isn't a suspect. He's a victim," she shot back.

He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Hey, I'm on your side!"

Seething to herself, Sara used the controller by her side to change the position of her bed. Moving it slightly to a more seated position caused her pain, but Sara ignored it. No one seemed to take her seriously while she was laying on her back, and she suddenly needed to have all the authority she could muster.

"Give me your phone,"

Nick raised an eyebrow at her. "What for?"

"You have the sheriff's direct number, right?"

"Uh..."

Sensing that was a yes, she persisted. "Just give it to me."

"I'm not sure that's the best-"

"Give me your damn phone or I swear I'm checking myself out of this hospital _today_."

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm mostly posting this here as well as at ffnet to allow for better access, but I appreciate the kudos and reviews offered here as feedback is the lifeblood of all fanfic writers.
> 
> Trigger warning for elements of self harm.

Catherine arrived at the jail just as Grissom was let out onto the street. A deputy sheriff had escorted him outside, shaken his hand, and then gone back in to the main booking area. Grissom looked into the sky and squinted at the harshness of the bright sun beaming back at him. The jail had obviously given him clothing as he wore non-descript sweatpants and a cheap, button-up shirt which was easily a two sizes too large.

"I figured you could use a ride," she offered, taking in his person.

He seemed smaller somehow. Not only had he obviously lost weight during his days in lock-up, but his overall physical presence seemed diminished somehow. As well, in the uncompromising harshness of daylight, she could see not only dark circles beneath his eyes but also bruising around his neck. She hadn't noticed the markings before in the hospital, Catherine realized with a start. Perhaps the redness had been hidden by the stubble of his unshaven beard, or she had simply been too distracted by the reality of what Grissom had attempted. But now the darker purple hues of the injury were much more obvious.

Carefully, Catherine set that last observation aside, afraid that if she allowed herself to consider Grissom's recent attempt at suicide too freely, it might further shatter her worldview.

"They gave me bus fare."

The statement made her smile as it sounded so much like Grissom, matter-of-fact and yet also quietly mindful of the world at large.

"And where do you intend to go?" Catherine asked. "Your house is still an active crime scene."

He shrugged. "My mother's house, I supposed. Probably a good time to get it ready to sell."

His mother had died nearly six months earlier, she recalled, but Grissom had been too busy at the lab to deal with her personal effects, so the house had been left fully furnished but unoccupied.

"You can stay with me and Lindsay," she offered.

But even as she said the words, he was shaking his head and looking down at the concrete sidewalk. "Thank you, but no. I don't really think it's a good idea for me to be around people right now."

"At least let me give you a ride."

He sighed, glanced at the bus stop a block down the road, and then nodded in acquiescence.

They spoke little during the drive, although Catherine knew he had questions. When they arrived at his mother's address, a dated ranch-style house in an older neighborhood, Catherine pulled up to the curb but left the car running.

For a long moment, she wondered if he planned to ever speak again, so lost in thought he was sitting in her passenger seat simply staring at the dashboard. Finally, he addressed her without moving to look in her direction.

"How did you do it?"

She noticed that Grissom spoke quietly, even more quietly than usual, and Catherine wondered if it had to do with the dark bruises on his neck or the even greater damage to his psyche.

Feigning ignorance, she responded, "Do what?"

"Convince them to let me out."

Catherine shrugged. "It wasn't me."

"Ecklie?"

She let out a dismissive snort, and Grissom closed his eyes as he took in one long, painful-sounding breath.

"Sara."

He spoke her name reverently, almost delicately. But the effort clearly hurt him, and Catherine wondered about the unspoken emotions hidden within his usually reserved manner.

"She called the sheriff. I'm not privy to all the details, but I think the gist is that she threatened to go to the news networks and tell them you were being held unjustly for political reasons if they didn't at least let you out on bond." Taking a breath, she went on, "Between Sara's statement, the attack on her and Greg, and the footprint at the crime scene, I guess he caved. The DA hasn't dropped the charges against you - yet - but they changed your bail to ROR. So you're free, for now."

"She's still at the hospital?" he murmured, still unable to look at Catherine.

"Yeah, at least another couple of weeks." Before he could ask, she volunteered, "After that, I think she plans on staying with Greg, for the time being. Full recovery should take several months."

"And what about Brenda Waters?"

"There's an APB out on her, and they've staked out her house in case she returns home. Not much else we can do while she's in the wind."

Silence fell between then, and Catherine could tell he had many more questions, about the case and about Sara, but he seemed reticent to pose them.

Finally, in a gruff voice, he questioned, "They're protecting Sara?"

Catherine smiled knowingly at his concern. "There's a deputy on her door at the hospital at all times. She wanted us to assign one to you…"

Grissom simply shook his head in silent refusal.

"...but I told her that you'd likely refuse."

"I'm not the one at risk."

They both knew that his statement ignored the obvious truth that he could be targeted by Brenda Waters just as easily as Sara could be, but Catherine suspected that he really did not care. So long as Sara was safe, he no longer seemed to have much concern for himself. Having known him so many years, Catherine recognized his unerring devotion to his work. Now, that single-mindedness applied only to Sara. Nothing else in the world seemed to matter. And yet...

"Are you planning on going to visit Sara at the hospital? I know she wants to see you." Catherine did not elaborate on the severe understatement of her last comment.

Grissom seemed startled by the suggestion. "I don't think that's a good idea," he muttered. He still had not spared her more than a couple sideways glanced, and she could tell that his spirits were beyond low. They practically seemed not existent. New worry blossomed within her even though she knew he would keep the promise he had made to her in the hospital.

"You shouldn't be alone, Gris."

Perhaps it was the worry in her voice, but he finally turned to look at her. "I'll be fine, Catherine."

As he assured her, he even attempted a small smile. But it did not reach his eyes and the effect left her more concerned than ever about his mental state.

"I think you should talk to someone," she advised. "Someone… a professional. What you've been through is just too much to deal with by yourself."

He said nothing to that, but rather looked back at the windshield of the car. Finally, he managed, "Thank you for the ride, Catherine."

Without further discussion, Grissom stepped out of the car and shut the door behind him. As he walked to the front door of his mother's house, he did not look back.

* * *

His mother's house was old and outdated but comfortable. While it was not the home he had grown up in, he felt well at ease there. His mother's presence followed him from room to room, silently reassuring him. But perhaps more importantly, this house had almost no memories of Sara. Or, at least not bad ones. He had brought her to dinner here to meet his mother for the first time. And then, months later, after the funeral, Sara had come by to check on him.

_"What can I do to help?" she asked._

_But he shook his head. "Nothing right now. I've taken care of all the immediate things. We should get back to the lab."_

_Sara's expression morphed into one full of care and compassion. "Gil," she said gently, "your mother just died. The lab can wait."_

_Then she had enveloped him in a hug, her arms around him tender and soft. She smelled fresh and clean, a contrast to the antiseptic odor at the hospital which had permeated his mother's final hours._

Even now, Grisson felt as if he could still make out Sara's scent. Closing his eyes, he took in a deep breath, hoping to find it. But whatever part of herself Sara had left behind, the intervening six months had carried it away.

And now… he would never get to smell her again.

Grissom lowered himself onto the worn couch his mother had always loved and thought for a long time about the future. For the last week, he had done nothing but reflect on the past, on moments he would rather forget entirely. But now that he had accepted that his life must go on, he needed to focus on what that would entail.

Work? The lab?

Grissom dismissed that question out of hand. His job was gone. Even if they dropped the charges against him and reinstated his position, he could never go back there. While he fully deserved to suffer the sidelong looks of doubt and suspicion from coworkers and subordinates, it would only harm the lab's reputation to have him there. Besides, more importantly, Sara would be there, once she recovered from her injuries. And he could no longer be in the same places as her.

Just the thought of Sara filled him with dread. From what Catherine told him, she did not blame him for what had happened, for what he had done, but that would only make things worse.

No, it was over. Their beautiful, cherished relationship, one which he had stopped from blooming for so long, had proved far more disastrous than he could have ever imagined. Once, he had worried it would mean the end of his professional career, dating one of his subordinates, a woman clearly 15 years his junior. But now, his career was the furthest thing from his mind. No, Sara had been right all those years before. Now that he had finally figured it out, it was too late.

How would Sara ever be able to look at him again, let alone accept him into her bed? _That_ thought filled him with both horror and disgust. His hands had no business ever touching her again.

Suddenly feeling overwhelmed with emotion, Grissom stood up and walked into the kitchen. An ancient knife block sat on the counter and he grabbed a handle at random.

The blade hissed as he pulled it out of the block and then Grissom simply stared at the unblemished steel. The weight of it in his hand, the way it reflected the incandescent light of the kitchen, sent a cold finger up his spine and he nearly dropped it entirely. But then he closed his eyes, focusing.

The pain within him felt so strong, the only logical thought he could find in the maelstrom of his emotions was to match that ache on the outside. Perhaps then, he reasoned, he would find some respite from it all. He wouldn't be breaking his promise to Catherine, he reasoned, not if he just did something small.

Summoning his courage, Grissom placed his left hand flat on the counter before positioning the knife as though he would cut into the skin.

How many times had he done this to Sara? He knew the number, but it was inadequate. The memories flooded back to him, and for once, he did not push them away.

_I deserve to remember_ , he reminded himself. _I deserve to suffer._

He swallowed hard as he looked down at the knife and prepared to drag the blade across the back of his hand. Sara had endured it, all those times he had sliced her skin apart. Why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't he feel every single scratch and burn and ache he had inflicted on her? Even if it did not take away her pain, it would let him know how she felt.

_She wouldn't want that_ , a voice inside him insisted urgently. _It would break her heart if she ever learned you had harmed yourself._

He closed his eyes tightly but knew the voice was right. And anything which might hurt Sara must be avoided at all costs. He owed her that much.

Slowly, feeling inexplicably like a coward and a failure, he returned the knife to the block before leaving the kitchen.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning in this chapter specifically for descriptions of violence.

Days blurred together for Grissom. He neither ate nor slept, the thought of food roiling his stomach nearly as much as the nightmares he endured whenever exhaustion managed to claim him.

In his dreams, Sara was always in front of him, tied to that chair, fighting not to scream as he did unspeakable things to her. And then, in the final moment which would catapult him back to consciousness, her muffled screams at the sight of the gun in his hand would ring clearly in his ears. 

He occupied his hours with work for the first few days, packaging up his mother's old clothes and books to donate to charity. Periodically he missed his own house with his own possessions, but the thought of returning there, for any reason, still sickened him. When his cell phone rang, which it rarely did, he let the calls ring through to voicemail. Eventually, he turned it to silent and left it in a drawer until the battery could die.

After spending a week in the sweat pants and t-shirts he had found at his mother's house, he had retrieved his cell from the drawer and dialed Catherine. Thankfully, she was willing to take pity on him and brought a suitcase full of clothes and other personal effects from his townhouse.

"Thank you," he told her in person as he received the much-needed items, putting as much emotion into the statement as he could muster.

"How are you holding up?" She asked the question after squeezing past him through the front door, not bothering to wait for an invitation to enter which she knew would not be forthcoming.

"I'm… alive," he remarked, any other answer sounding wildly optimistic in his estimation.

"Have you been eating?" she asked, opening the fridge to reveal its bare shelves.

Grissom said nothing as she already had her answer.

"Sleeping?" she asked, turning to look at him

He remained silent in the face of that inquiry as well. After shaking her head at him in annoyance, Catherine deliberately looked him up and down with her usual appraising eye, and he could tell that she was ready to give him a scolding for not taking care of himself.

Hoping to avoid Catherine in full-on 'mom mode,' he inquired softly, "How is she?"

A name was not needed. They both knew he asked about Sara, and Catherine knew that news of her meant more to him than any sustenance food could provide.

"Maybe if you answered your phone once in a while," she muttered under her breath before providing a report. "She's recovering well. They'll probably let her out of the hospital to finish convalescing at home in the next few days. Until then, she's driving Greg and Nick crazy. They trade off going to sit with her. Sometimes Warrick or I fill in, but…"

Catherine trailed off, the rest of her statement not needing to be said aloud.

_But she would rather you were there._

Ignoring her unspoken nudge, Grissom asked, "She's still under guard?"

Nodding, Catherine answered his next question before he could pose it. "And no sign of Brenda Waters. They're still looking, but she seems to have gone to ground for the time being."

Silence fell between them then, and Grissom wrapped himself in a cloak of numbness while she studied him carefully.

"What do you plan to do?" she asked finally.

Shrugging in indifference, he looked at her with haunted eyes. "I don't know. Nothing? I can't think of anything to do."

"Grissom…"

"My life is over, Catherine," he told her, realizing the truth of that statement even as it left his mouth. "There is nothing for me to do now."

"That isn't true," she insisted. "What about the lab? And Sara? She needs you. We all need you."

"I am the very last thing Sara needs," he stated pointedly, anger beginning to well up inside of him.

But the tender expression on his friend's face cooled his fury, and Grissom chastised himself anew for taking out his feelings on her.

"She still loves you," Catherine affirmed. "She asks about you every time I talk to her. She's worried."

His stomach twisted at the thought of Sara lying in a hospital bed, worrying about _him_.

"You should go," he said simply.

Ignoring his statement, she went on, "I'm worried, too. We all are. A lot of people care about you, you know."

Unable to meet her gaze, Grissom focused his eyes on the worn linoleum of his mother's kitchen floor. The thought of letting down everyone at the lab weighed heavily on him suddenly, and he realized he had betrayed not only Sara but everyone who had once looked up to him. 

"I'm not going to kill myself, Catherine. I already made you that promise."

The assurance sounded dull and pathetic even to him.

"But you aren't planning to live, either. Are you?"

When he did not answer and did not look up at her, Catherine sighed.

"You have got to pull yourself out of this," she chided. "What are you going to do when they let Sara out of the hospital? Are you just going to keep ignoring her forever? Are you going to stay in this old house, staring at your mother's wallpaper, until your body gives out and releases you from that promise you made? Because slowly starving yourself is just another form of suicide, Gris. And even if you don't care about anything else, I know you still care about Sara. Seeing you like this, it would devastate her."

Her tirade earned her his eyes focused back on her face again, and slowly, Grissom formed a response.

"I don't intend to ever see Sara again. She doesn't need that reminder…"

Catherine shook her head and let out an irritated chuckle. "You are a piece of work, Gil Grissom."

The comment should have raised his ire, but he suddenly felt too tired and weak to argue.

"Did you know that Sara had a tattoo?"

Confused by the odd non-sequitur, Catherine paused before slowly shaking her head.

"A little one, on her ankle. About the size of a quarter. It was a beetle - a carpet beetle - but in rainbow colors. The last to arrive at a corpse. Not unlike crime scene investigators. That's why Sara got it, a few months after we started dating. She said it reminded her of me."

He segued quickly from the dispassionate tone of a lecturer into a more emotional resonance.

"And I do mean that she _had_ a tattoo. I use the past tense because it is gone now. I took a filet knife and I… I..."

He took a deep breath before continuing, his voice cracking with the force of barely contained tears. "I cut the skin off her ankle."

The woman standing in front of him visibly shuddered at his words. But he pressed on, determined to make Catherine understand.

"Do you know what she did, how Sara reacted? She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and barely made a sound."

"My God, Gil…"

"She barely made a sound," he repeated, his words steeped in both awe and horror. He waited a long moment for the imagery he had just described to fully impact his friend before dismissing her. "Thank you again for the clothes, Catherine. You can let yourself out."

* * *

"Really, Greg, I can walk," Sara protested weakly even as her friend wheeled her through the hospital parking garage to his car. Two uniformed officers followed them slowly in a police cruiser, and Sara felt a fresh surge of embarrassment.

Her friend simply tsked at her patiently. "Sara, you were shot. There's no way I'm letting every cop in Vegas - courtesy of Heckle and Jeckle back there - think I'm not man enough to push you to the car." Besides, she heard him say through a forced grin, "It's not every day I get to be the hero. Usually that honor goes to Nick or Warrick or…"

Or Grissom.

His name froze on Greg's lips, and she wished he had not stopped himself from saying it. While the existence of Brenda Waters had washed away any doubt of Grissom's culpability in what had happened to her, Sara could sense the strange hesitation which still surrounded the members of their team. They almost seemed unwilling to voice their real opinions but to wait and accept however she felt about the experience, about Grissom's actions. And after being treated with kid gloves for so long in the hospital, the entire situation left Sara frustrated enough to scream.

Although, she was willing to give Greg a pass, all things considered.

"You are a hero. You're _my_ hero," she reminded him. "You took a syringe full of antifreeze for me."

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Greg shudder at the memory. Thankfully, he too had been given a clean bill of health, but his extended medical leave put him in the best position to take Sara home when the doctors had finally signed off on her release.

When they reached the car, Sara found herself grateful that Greg had brought his own small sedan to the hospital rather than one of the Tahoes from the office. Getting out of the low-floored car might be difficult later, but she sighed in relief as he helped her lower herself into the passenger seat. An abdominal injury was no joke, she acknowledged to herself, and it made any sort of tensing of those muscles extremely painful. Even coughing or laughing had been problematic.

He loaded her bag into the trunk before taking his position behind the wheel. Behind them, the officers in the squad car waited with rapidly dissipating patience for Greg to pull out of the space.

"You won't think I'm much of a hero when you see how messy my place is," he joked with her as he clicked on his seat belt. "But I've got clean sheets for the spare room and-"

"Greg," Sara interrupted, and he suddenly stopped.

"Am I talking too much?"

He flashed a nervous smile, but Sara shook her head in quiet endearment. "No, I just… I want you to take me somewhere else."

"Sara, you really shouldn't be trying to go up and down the stairs at your apartment building just yet-" he began, but she interrupted him again.

"No, not there."

"Then…" Greg's eyebrows shot up in sudden comprehension as he realized where she wanted to go.

"Catherine told me he's staying at his mother's house. I'll give you the directions…" she said.

Behind then, the squad car let out a honk, a reminder that they were still waiting on Greg to leave the hospital parking garage. He held his hand up over his head, waving politely at the officers even as he muttered some choice words under his breath.

"Sara, is that really such a good idea? I mean-"

"Greg, just drive," she told him succinctly, and as an afterthought added more gently, "Please?"

* * *

Grissom usually hated the banality of popular television, and broadcast entertainment during the daylight hours seemed even worse. Talk shows, game shows, soap operas… The utter mindlessness of it typically bored him beyond measure. But over the past few days, he had learned to appreciate the numbness such vapid distractions could provide.

When the doorbell rang, he sighed deeply as anxiety filled him. _Catherine_ , he assumed. _I should apologize for last time she came to check on me._

After all, she was the only one from the team to have visited him since his release from jail. The others had called, their concerns going to voicemail, but Catherine seemed to have been chosen as the team liaison with him, the others either too busy with work or with Sara to come to him.

_They probably think they'd be unwelcome_ , Grissom reminded himself. He hadn't exactly been very communicative with anyone since... well, since. In point of fact, he dreaded the eventual confrontation with the other team members. Even if they followed Sara and Catherine's lead and absolved him of guilt for his crimes, they would still look at him differently. He _was_ different. Gone was their mentor and leader, replaced by a husk of a man done in by acts of violence against another.

Pushing those thoughts aside, he allowed himself a moment to appreciate Catherine's presence even before opening the door. As his only link to the outside world, she deserved better than to be subjected to his bottomless pit of depression and recriminations. But as he pulled the door open with one smooth motion, Grissom froze.

"Sara."

Her name escaped his lips unbidden, and Grissom stared at her in shock.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning in this chapter for depicted violence.

She looked beautiful, as always. While he had not seen her in the hospital, he recognized how much she must have healed in the short weeks since the night when lives were torn apart. The stitches on the side of her face, the splints on her fingers, and a few half-healed scabs on her exposed skin were the only outward signs of the ordeal, but he knew better. She wore loose-fitting pants and an overly large t-shirt. One of his, he realized with a start. She had stolen it to sleep in early on in their relationship and it had never made it back into his wardrobe.

Behind her, Grissom noticed movement and a quick glance took in several things all at once: Greg stood by his car parked at the curb and gave the older man an apologetic smile and a wave before climbing into the vehicle to leave. Behind Greg's car sat a LVPD cruiser with two uniformed officers inside. One gave Grissom a barely perceptible nod of acknowledgment.

Before he could look back at Sara, she was already squeezing past him into the house.

"Hey, grab my bag, will you?" she called behind her with deliberate casualness. Grissom did as she bid without thinking and then followed her, closing the door behind him.

He found her in the living room staring with amusement at his television choices. Family Feud played on the screen, and for a moment, the surrealness of hearing Steve Harvey asking questions with barely veiled innuendo while Sara was so close left him feeling like a stranger in his own body.

With a smirk, she remarked, "I always pegged you more for the Price is Right…"

"Sara…" he began, not knowing what to say or even where to begin. His mouth had gone dry dry and his knees seemed unsteady beneath him. Having fully never expected to see her again, he had not even practiced this conversation. Forcing himself to focus entirely on her, he struggled to locate a pathway through the murky darkness of his own thoughts. Absently, he turned off the television.

"I thought you were still in the hospital."

Sara flashed him a kind smile. "Yeah, well, they finally kicked me out."

"Catherine told me you were going to stay with Greg."

This time, her eyes darkened and she did not laugh off whatever emotion he had sparked within her. Uneasiness, perhaps. But she quickly buried it, refusing to let him hide and push her away. "I changed my mind. I made Greg bring me here."

The way she looked at him, as though drinking in every line of his body, reassuring herself of his existence, made him wonder if he was looking at her the same way. She took a step towards him, and the movement made him shudder even as he took an involuntary step back away from her.

"Sara…" he began again, knowing even as he said her name that the ability to speak further would abandon him.

"I needed to see you," she confessed tenderly. "I've been needing to see you ever since…"

Grateful that she did not finish her sentence, Grissom closed his eyes instinctively, as if to block out the memory. But her nearness only reminded him of those horrible hours in his garage. His stomach, as empty as it was, heaved and filled the back of his throat with the taste of bile. He swallowed reflexively.

"You shouldn't be here," he managed finally, forcing himself to look at her.

"Then where should I be?"

Her question knocked the wind out of his sails, perhaps because her natural charm had taken effect. Even if he could not express himself properly, she seemed to know what he wanted to say. And more importantly, he had not the will to cause her any sort of distress.

With a painful sigh, he said gently, "You should be resting. Please, sit."

Gesturing to the couch, he left to get them both a glass of water from the kitchen.

The cool water washed away the ugly taste in his mouth, and it helped to settle his stomach. But as the liquid reached his stomach, that organ forcefully reminded him of how little he had eaten in the ensuing weeks. He did not even have snacks in the house to offer Sara should she get hungry, he realized in embarrassment. But then, she wouldn't be staying, he affirmed before filling a glass of water for her as well before returning to the living room. The brief errand allowed him a moment to compose himself, but Grissom did not delay for too long lest Sara come looking for him.

She had taken one corner of his mother's couch, reclining gingerly against the cushions and looking utterly at ease in his presence. He wondered at that, how she could be so calm and relaxed whereas he was more edgy than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, making certain that their fingers did not brush as he handed her the glass of water.

"Pretty good, surprisingly," Sara answered. She deliberately took a sip of the water before glancing up at him and asking, "What about you? How are you feeling?"

"I've been trying not to," he said, voicing the truth before he could stop himself.

He regretted the words even as they came out of his mouth. They hit Sara's countenance like a blow, and he saw her shoulders visibly sag. Empathy had always been both a strength and a weakness for Sara. It was one aspect of her personality that he both loved and hated - she ready willingness to feel what others felt, internalizing their pain as if it were her own. But the last thing he ever wanted to do _ever_ again was cause Sara pain.

"Gil, I really think we need to talk."

He could tell from her tone that she was about to say something to reassure him, and he did not want to hear it. He could not hear it, not from her lips while she sat so close to him, still healing from what he had done...

"There isn't anything to talk about," he said quickly, setting his water aside so he could beat a hasty retreat if necessary.

His statement elicited an expression of disbelief, and she began to ask, "There isn't anything-?" but quickly cut herself off. Shaking her head, Sara paused for a moment before restarting with a much softer tone. "I've been thinking for the last two weeks about what I'd say to you when I finally saw you again. But nothing ever sounded quite adequate. I guess it all boils down to… thank you."

While Grissom was not sure what he might have been expecting her to express in that moment, it certainly wasn't gratitude.

He responded in disbelief, "I almost killed you, Sara."

The bluntness of the observation surprised even him, her unexpected appearance having brought things to a sudden and ugly clarity. But her reaction to that stark reality was not what he would have expected.

She barely reacted at all.

"You saved my life," she reiterated. The way she said the words, so matter-of-factly, he knew that she truly believed it. While he struggled to recover, Sara went on, "I'd like to think if our positions were reversed, that I would have had the strength and courage to do what you did. Not everyone could have, but you did. And because of that, I'm still alive. So, thank you, Gil. I really mean that."

She spoke with something akin to admiration, and Grissom could no longer bear the weight of her gaze. Unlike his own feelings, she voiced no recriminations, no anger or hurt or even confusion. Rather, she _praised_ his actions, as though he deserved recognition rather than the most severe of sanctions. The incongruence of being not only immediately absolved of guilt but _thanked_ for the most heinous crimes he had ever committed was too much to bear.

"Sara, please," Grissom appealed, unable to continue this conversation. He kept his eyes averted from hers, too ashamed to let her see into the depths of his blackened soul.

"None of it was your fault, Gil." She spoke softly with tenderness and comfort, but the worst stung. Despite everything she had been through, everything he had put her through, _she_ was comforting _him_. She still cared more for soothing his pain than protecting herself.

Sara shifted on the couch, and Grissom knew automatically that she was about to reach for him, to offer him whatever solace through touch he refused to accept from her declarations. And it was simply too much to bear.

"Do something for me," he said quickly, glancing up at her.

Sara simply cocked her heat to the side, curious but willing. Slowly, he reached his hand into his pocket and removed a multi-tool, the kind which could unfold to become a pair of pliers but also had a screwdriver, other tools, and knives. He had been using it for small repair projects around the house but the weight of it was also a reminder.

A reminder of the sharp blades in his block in his mother's kitchen, of the urge he had ignored not once but several times in the past two weeks to take them and mutilate his own flesh the way he had done to Sara's. He had not made such an attempt - yet - but carrying the multitool in his pocket allowed him to keep temptation close.

Carefully, Grissom opened the tool to bear the largest knife and held it out to Sara with the blade pointed towards him. When she did not take it at first, he waited, his eyes full of pleading that she do so. Reluctantly, Sara grasped the cold metal handle, clearly uncertain about what he had in mind and nervous about where this exercise was going.

He looked up and deliberately met her gaze as he appealed again. "Now cut me."

Sara's eyes widened at the request and a second later flashed with anger.

"No," she said and tried to hand the tool back.

"Sara, please," he pleaded, his voice barely above a whisper. "Indulge me."

Sara clenched her teeth together but she probably figured whatever demonstration he had in mind was likely to some purpose. Gil Grissom was nothing if not a teacher.

Warily, she inquired, "Where?"

He shrugged, too defeated to care. "Anywhere."

Reaching for his hand, Sara paused for a moment as a memory clearly flashed into her mind.

* * *

_She groaned in pain at the feel of a hand slapping across her face. Consciousness seemed very far away for her brain even as her body's reaction to the unpleasant stimuli drug her to the surface. For several seconds, her eyes saw and her skin felt, but nothing else seemed to be working._

_All she heard was static, like the white noise played on an untuned television set. While her vision swam a little, she knew Grissom was kneeling in front of her, his eyes looking directly into hers. But when she tried to speak, nothing came out._

_Her lips would not move, and when she tried to raise a hand to them, her hand would not move either. Confused, she looked from Grissom down to her wrists and saw they had been tied to the chair she sat in. But even looking down proved difficult as she could not turn her head. Somehow, it had been secured to the chair as well, just as the headphones playing static felt as though they had been secured across her ears._

_Sara turned her eyes back to Grissom, her confusion only increasing, and at the sight of what he was holding, a primal sort of panic lit her instincts on fire. She tugged at the bonds, but every one of them felt secure: her arms, her legs, and her head. The tape over her mouth - duct tape, most likely - also stayed put despite her attempts to pry it off her lips and mouth._

_Grissom turned from her then, and she watched as he approached a table behind him. While his body obscured her vision of most of the items on the surface, she recognized a few of them._

_Knives._

_When he turned back to her, he held one in his hand. It was one of the knives from his kitchen, she assumed from the look of it, but she knew it would not be used for chopping vegetables._

_Slowly, almost reluctantly, Grissom approached her. He knelt down on the floor before her and very gently took her hand in his, to the extent he could with the bonds holding her arm in place. With exquisite, nightmarish slowness, he brought the blad to the skin on the back of her hand._

_The sting was followed by the sight of blood. Sara could tell the cut was shallow, but the fact that he had cut her at all both confused and terrified her. Was this some sort of dream? Or… or… an experiment she had forgotten? But no, everything was very real, including Grissom. And she knew in the depths of her soul he would never harm her in an experiment._

_A moment later, a second cut ran parallel to the first, deeper this time. Had she been able to speak, Sara might have gasped, but the tape helped her bite back a groan instead._

_Automatically, she flexed her hand away from his, and he let her go. She tried to search his face, but his eyes were focused entirely on the twin marks he had made with the knife. His expression betrayed a studied calm she knew he could not possibly possess in that moment. But the longer she took in his image, the more she noticed everything about him that was wrong._

_Grissom's jaw was outlined even under his beard, and Sara knew he was clenching his teeth tightly. Even with his lips pressed together, his bottom lip quivering in the way it sometimes did when he searched for the right thing to say. His hand, the one which had held hers so gently, shook ever so slightly. And his other hand, the one holding the knife, hung limply at his side._

_After a moment, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then reached for her hand again._

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

Sara looked down at the knife before turning it over in her hand to examine her own cuts - now scabbed and healing. Then she drug her eyes up to look across the couch at Grissom. He _wanted_ her to cut him. Perhaps so he could feel some part of what she had felt? Perhaps because he wanted her to receive some revenge?

Compelled by some strange inner voice which told her to trust Grissom, Sara reached for his hand. He gave it to her willingly, although his eyes closed immediately at her touch. His skin felt warm and alive against hers, and Sara turned his hand over to look at the back. A scattering of light colored hairs dotted his wrist, spacing out to smooth skin midway to his knuckles. She noticed a few freckles and age spots, but otherwise, the back of his hand was clean and unblemished.

It was the first time they had touched since that night, and she could tell that the contact, as little as it was, had a highly emotional effect on Grissom. His body seemed taut like a wire, his muscles ready to flex in an instant, as though he were on the precipice of a fight or flight response. And his hand felt unsteady, as though if she were not holding it in her own it would shake violently.

Sara moved as though in slow motion, as though someone else were controlling her body, placing the knife against his skin. And then her fingers froze. Even as she did her best to force them, she could not continue.

"This knife is a little dull," Grissom said quietly, his tone encouraging. "I haven't gotten around to sharpening it recently. The ones from my kitchen were much sharper."

Her heart had already begun beating faster, Sara realized, even as she noticed that she had been holding her breath. The back of her neck felt unusually hot, and an uncomfortable wave of nausea was growing in the pit of her stomach.

When she still did not move, Grissom went on, "My skin is also older, thinner. Yours was…"

His statement tapered off, and Sara realized he was breathing unevenly as well. A glance up at him confirmed that he seemed just as on edge as she, but his eyes were transfixed - not on the knife she held, but on his hand and hers which held it steady.

As though a spell had been broken, she let go of his hand.

His eyes snapped up to hers, confused. "Sara…?"

Trembling slightly, she folded the knife back into the multi-tool and set it down on the couch between them.

"When you have a gun to your head, I'll do as you ask, but not before then."

"I'm sorry," he said while averting his eyes in embarrassment. Picking up the tool and returning it to his pocket, he went on, "I was just trying to-"

"I know what you were trying to do," Sara stated archly. "But it isn't the same. You didn't have a choice."

"There's always a choice."

"Let me die?" she challenged. "Let Brenda Waters blow my brains out and then turn the gun on you? How is that better?"

"Sara, you know as well as I do that motive doesn't matter. It's about the actions we take."

Narrowing her eyes at him, she threw back, "And just as _you_ know, intent is an element of almost every crime. You never intended to cause me harm. You were under extreme duress."

Her voice sliced through the tension in the room, and for one long moment, she thought he might actually shatter right in front of her. When he spoke again, he sounded utterly lost, like a child.

"I could have fought her," he offered softly. "I should have. I could have called 911 when I found you gone. But I didn't. I walked right into her trap."

Lowering her voice to match his, she soothed, "Gil, you couldn't possibly have known what was going to happen..."

He started to respond, but Sara scooted closer to him, halting whatever he was going to say. This time, when she took his hand, she smiled.

"I know you feel guilty. Of course you do. You wouldn't be the Gil Grissom I know and love if you didn't. But what you did - what she _made_ you do - does not reflect on you, on your worth as a person."

She tried to put as much love into her expression as possible, and she gently squeezed his hand to emphasize the point. But she could still feel the tension present in his body relax, and his eyes still held that mournful glimmer she had come to hate.

"Doesn't it?" he asked, the question genuine and distressed. Gone was the self-assured supervisor who taught through rhetorical questions and vague quips. The man before her was broken, a shell of his former self. "I've always despised anyone who would harm their loved ones. Men who beat their wives, parents who abuse their children. But now I have to count myself as one of them."

Sara shook her head. "You didn't beat me, Gil. You have never touched me in anger. You did exactly what you had to do to keep me alive."

"The result is still the same."

His other hand, the one she wasn't holding, reached up to touch the side of her face, his thumb caressing the skin next to the stitches. While his willingness to reach out to her gave her some hope of convincing him that he was not to blame, the look of anguish in his eyes told her differently.

"Only if you let her win. Only if you let her destroy what we have. And you can't. You can't..."

He suddenly seemed mesmerized by her lips, and Sara thought she recognized a chink in his armor, in the heavy mantle of guilt and recrimination he now wore.

"Because, the thing is, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to go on without you in my life," Sara said, speaking slowly to be understood despite the knot of unshed tears developing in the back of her throat. "I know I don't _want_ to, but if I thought you didn't want me, I would find a way... to go on alone. But if it's because you have this belief that I don't still want you because of what happened… that simply isn't true."

His face softened at her words, and Sara knew she had managed to get through his defenses, at least a little. When he did not speak, she went on, "I'm not saying it's going to be easy, for either of us. We already had enough baggage before all this. But I think it's worth it to try."

Grissom took a long breath before responding. "And if you find that having me in your life is… too much? What if you can't bear to have me... touch you... without remembering?"

Sara understood his concern, although she did not share it. He feared committing to her now only to have his heart broken later through rejection or revulsion. In his eyes, they would always be covered in her blood.

"Then we keep trying," Sara assured him.

But the answer was not what he wanted to hear, and she watched as Grissom's walls came back up again. "I don't want you to ignore your trauma just to supplicate me."

Sara knew she had to say or do something to assure him or she would lose what little ground she had gained. On impulse, she moved even closer and folded her arms around him, bringing his body into contact with hers. She tilted her head to the side and put her lips against his even as he froze at her touch.

She kissed him gently but insistently, ignoring the fact that he had not enclosed his arms around her in return. His resistance felt passive, as though he were willing himself not to react rather than wishing she would stop. But after a moment, she did pause, letting her lips trail to a spot of skin just beneath his ear.

"Please hold me, Gil," she begged.

The request caused a shiver to run through his body, but he complied, slowly bringing his arms around to encircle her in their shared embrace. As both thanks and assurance, Sara hugged him a little tighter.

"I love you," she whispered. The words were far from a revelation, but she did not say them often as she knew he had trouble saying them at all.

They sat that way for a long time, and slowly, slowly, his body relaxed against hers. She reveled in the heat he radiated, the strength in his arms and chest. The only times in her adult life that Sara had ever felt safe were when she was with him, and in that moment, she felt no different. Despite his closeness and the memories of what he had done, she felt no traumatic flashbacks, no uneasiness or uncertainty. His scent reminded her of the last time they had made love, the evening before Brenda Waters had upended their lives.

But then, just as Sara thought they might finally be on a road to healing, Grissom pulled away from her sharply. Shadows had fallen across his eyes again, and she could tell by the set of his jaw that while she was perfectly comfortable with him, he did not feel the same.

_He is recovering from trauma as well_ , Sara reminded herself. _Whether he is willing to believe it or not._

"Gil…"

The sound of his name startled him further and he retreated from the couch entirely.

"No, I can't… I can't do this."

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

_Blood poured down her foot from the wound on her ankle, and Grissom felt his stomach begin to heave. Knowing he would not be able to stop himself, he pushed away from Sara and the chair she was tied to and crawled out of her view before dry heaving into the floor. Too many hours had passed since their meal together the previous night, and the only stomach contents he brought up was acidic bile which stung his throat. And yet, his body still clenched and heaved painfully, the overwhelming scent of Sara's blood permeating his senses._

_No stranger to either the smell or sight of blood, Grissom knew his reaction must be psychological rather than physical. It was_ Sara's _blood, after all._ Her _skin and bones and flesh. This nightmare simply would not end, and her quiet suffering tormented him on levels he had never thought possible._

" _Continue," the woman directed archly from her position behind Sara. Having apparently anticipated the hours of standing, she had already retrieved herself a chair and sat in it comfortably, the gun loosely trained at Sara's back._

_Grissom gasped,_ " _I can't."_

_He shook his head, both unwilling and unable to hurt Sara further. The last injury, literally skinning her alive, had depleted whatever reserves he had remaining._

" _So, you're willing to see her die in front of you?" the woman asked in a cold, sadistic tone._

_He swallowed hard before answering, trying to get the taste out of his mouth from his stomach's upheaval. "I can't keep hurting her."_

" _If you don't, you'll be responsible for her death…" The woman paused and he suspected she smiled sadistically under her mask. "And I'll even let you live. You'll get to live knowing she died because you were too cowardly to keep going. Of course, everyone will believe_ you _did it..."_

_His strength left him then, and he nearly collapsed onto the garage floor under the weight of the choice she had given him. Sara meant everything to him - EVERYTHING. Looking over at her, he saw her face in profile, the muscles in her jaw still flexed tightly as she kept her teeth locked and her eyes squeezed shut. Her fingers gripped the arms of the chair so hard that her knuckles were white from the effort._

" _Please just let her go," he begged their tormentor. "Kill me, torture me, but let her go. She's been through so much already. She doesn't deserve this."_

_The woman regarded him silently for a long moment, and he knew he had not gotten through to her. In one last desperate attempt, he sat up slightly on his knees and put his hands together, mimicking the image of a child in prayer._

_"I beg you, please stop this. Please let her go."_

_She said nothing at first and the silence of the room was filled only by the faraway sound of the static coming from Sara's headphones. Then Sara groaned softly, breaking the spell, and Grissom noticed her eyes open. With him gone from her immediate line of sight, she tried to move her head, pulling hard against the bindings which kept her from looking too far left or right._

" _Time to decide, Doctor Grissom."_

_With a soul-desiccating sigh, he took a shuddering breath and stood up again. Moving slowly back to the chair which held Sara captive, he crouched down to retie the rope keeping her leg bound to the chair. Without asking permission, he grabbed a small towel from the table and positioned it over her ankle to stem the bleeding there and gently used the rope to secure not only her leg to the chair but the towel as a temporary bandage._

_When he looked up again, he saw Sara watching him closely. Once she had his attention, she deliberately closed her eyes in one long pause before opening them again. Grissom knew immediately what the signal meant, and it tore at his heart._

I forgive you.

* * *

"I can't do this."

He took several steps back, putting enough distance between them to be safe - for Sara to be safe from him.

She visibly deflated at his retreat, and Grissom chastised himself for causing her further pain. He intertwined his fingers together in front of himself as unobtrusively as possible. Finding the right words had always proved difficult for him, but he knew he needed to make the effort anyway.

"I can't… I don't know how to apologize to you. Sara, I don't know how to ask for your forgiveness for… something like this. I'm not sure I even _should_ ask because what I did to you is just so far beyond the pale…"

Pushing herself up off the couch so she could look at him eye-to-eye, Sara said, "I don't want an apology from you."

"I know," he acknowledged, "and that makes it worse. Sara-"

"Do you love me?"

The question cut through everything around them like molten steel, through the turmoil of his emotions and his fumbling attempts to give voice to them. While the inquiry smacked of simplicity, he knew she would not have asked but to some greater purpose. Before his emotions could freeze his tongue and leave him speechless once more, Grissom confessed gruffly, "Yes."

"How much?" she pressed.

Pausing for only a breath, he supplied. "More than life itself."

"Then why don't you want to be with me?" she demanded, growing angry.

"I never said I didn't want to be with you. I said I _can't_."

The enigmatic response only seemed to frustrate Sara more and she absently swept her hands through her hair. In doing so, a number of strands caught in the splints of her broken fingers. With a growl of irritation, she began simply pulling at them, obviously not caring how many hairs she yanked from her scalp in the process.

"Stop," Grissom ordered, and without thinking, stepped forward. "Just let me…"

Gently, he disentangled the hairs from where they had caught in the splints. He worked for several moments, taking great care to hurt her as little as possible. Finally, when her injured hand was free, he held it gently with his own and looked down at it intently. Seeing her broken fingers up close again sent a jagged dagger through his heart as horrible memories of exactly how she had been hurt played through his mind.

Sara twitched ever so slightly, as though she felt the automatic urge to pull away from him but forced herself to ignore it. Immediately, he let her go and took a step back from her to his safe distance.

"I want you to be happy, Sara," Grissom shared softly, "That's all I've ever wanted. And… I don't think I'll ever be the one who can give you that, not after what happened."

"Gil, you didn't have a choice-"

"It's not just that," he interrupted, grimacing as she once again defended him.

Somehow, the way she dismissed her own suffering at his hands stung more than any recriminations she could have thrown his way. To his ears, her words sounded like the justifications of a woman so broken and brainwashed by an abusive partner that she actually believed she deserved to be harmed. Looking at her face and body, Sara certainly resembled many of the battered women he had met in his career. In addition to the visible cut on her face and her broken fingers, he also noticed that while she had no trouble walking, she had begun to favor one foot, taking her weight off the one with the burns which were likely still healing.

And yet, Sara's eyes were alive with fire and determination. How many times had he purposely dimmed that fire through his rejections and neglect? How many years of her life had he wasted, giving her enough crumbs of affection to convince her to stay at the lab?

"I know you love me, Sara. But I've never done anything to deserve those feelings. I haven't been good for you. For far too long, I kept you at arm's length because of my own doubts, years in which I refused to acknowledge what we both knew in our hearts. When I finally accepted what you were willing to give all along, we kept our relationship a secret for nearly two years to protect _me_ and _my career_. And then when Natalie Davis kidnapped you…"

He paused, suddenly overwhelmed by the old memories of seeing her miniaturized body under that car, one hand reached out as though desperately seeking help. Tears came to his eyes unbidden, and he looked away from her, focusing his gaze at a point in space as he fought to control his emotions.

"She took you to get at me," Grissom finished, "and you almost died."

"But you saved me."

Her words were a benediction, but Grissom pushed it away. He had allowed himself that excuse once. Twice was too much.

"You would never have been out there if not for me. You wouldn't even be here in Vegas if not for me."

Pursing her lips, Sara demanded, "So you're ready to throw away everything I've accomplished over the last ten years just because crazy people target us for doing our jobs? You're ready to give up on what we have because of what others have done to hurt us?"

Closing his eyes, Grissom allowed her rage to wash over him, to saturate every crevice and wrinkle of his body. He deserved her anger and even welcomed it. For the first time in two weeks, he could finally feel something besides depression and despair. He was protecting Sara, and in doing so, he could finally find some penance for his sins.

"If you have a nightmare in the middle of the night and wake up to see me lying next to you, would that really be a comfort?" he asked. "Or would it only be a continuation of the nightmare? How many of your natural instincts would you have to suppress just to stay in bed at the sight of your torturer? How much of your spirit would you have to sacrifice to do that?"

Staring at him for a long moment before answering.

"You think I dream about you hurting me?" She gave a wry, sardonic laugh before shaking her head. "No, my nightmares are much worse. Because when I dream, I see you putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger. I wake up screaming at the thought that you've killed yourself - because of _me_. That you would be willing to end your own life rather than continuing to give me a few _papercuts_ -"

"Don't do that," he cut in. "Don't make light of your injuries, of what happened to you. You endured extreme trauma-"

"And so did you."

He froze at the tone of her voice, the pained expression on her face, and the obvious concern for him written in every line of her body.

"Gil…" After saying his name, she paused, clearly considering. Finally, she narrowed her eyes in that way she sometimes did when something new occurred to her. "If you're looking for absolution, I can't give it to you."

"I wouldn't ask-"

"Only you can do that," she interrupted him. "But if you want to know what I want, I want you. And I want to be with you. I want to with you while I recover. I want to be here for you while _you_ get through this. And I want to be with you after that."

Her pointed statements felt like a bucket of cold water - shock followed by icy discomfort. Of course, he would do anything to help Sara, but this… Being near her terrified him. And it also terrified him how much he _wanted_ her to stay with him. He had missed her during their separation, as much as he had refused to let himself admit it.

But none of that really mattered. All that mattered anymore was Sara and _her_ needs. _Her_ wants.

Finally, he asked, "Is that really what you want?"

"Yes."

He nodded slowly and with a sigh, he said, "Okay. I guess I'll… order us something to eat."

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

Dinner consisted of pizza delivered from a place Grissom remembered being not far from his mother's house. He ordered with Sara in mind, asking for vegetables and cheese but no meat. While the persistent coil of hunger and nausea in his belly had been a constant companion since he had been released from jail, and he had felt no inclination toward actual sustenance. However, when the pizza arrived, the aroma of warm cheese and fresh baked crust enticed him to eat a piece. He kept his bites small and interspersed them with water, very aware that eating too much after depriving his stomach for so long could be disastrous. And the last thing Grissom wanted was for Sara to see him get sick.

She watched him surreptitiously as they sat on far sides of his mother's couch, the television on in the background. The channel selection proved limited - only the public access stations - but Sara had found a nature show playing on PBS. The domesticity of the evening felt odd to Grissom, but not unwelcome. For her part, Sara seemed utterly at ease in his presence. In fact, he sensed from her a longing to be closer to him, but she maintained her distance for his sake.

Finally, when the nature program was over, Sara turned off the television and stood up. She was already reaching for his empty plate when he realized she intended to clean up.

Springing from his seat, Grissom said quickly, "I'll take these. You should rest."

She relinquished her dish without a fight, but as he strode to the kitchen, he sensed her following. Grissom cleaned the plates and put the leftover pizza into the otherwise empty refrigerator, conscious of Sara behind him, watching every movement. When he was finally finished, he turned to find her staring at him openly.

"I'm worried about you," she confessed without preamble.

"You shouldn't be."

"But I am. And I mean worried, Gil, not just 'concerned.'"

The frank comment flooded Grissom with sadness and disgust at himself for causing Sara to focus on his well-being more than her own. Far too often, during the course of their relationship and the years before they became involved, she had shouldered these unfair burdens for his sake. It had to stop.

"I promised Catherine I wouldn't try to kill myself again," he assured her. The "again" hung in the air like a siren, and the rest of his statement sounded flat and inadequate even to him.

With a firm but tender expression, she answered, "I want you to promise _me_."

"Sara… I promise."

"And I want you to promise me that you'll start eating."

Closing his eyes, Grissom nodded slightly, enough to be understood as an affirmative. Clearly, she had glimpsed the empty refrigerator and lack of fruits and vegetables he typically kept on the counter. In fact, the few bits of food he had bothered to eat in the previous two weeks had consisted of stale crackers and a few tins of tuna from the cupboard.

Ignoring the desire to point out Sara's own tendency to skip meals, he asked with wry amusement, "Any other demands?"

"One more," she said, approaching him slowly. "I want you to talk to someone about what happened. It doesn't have to be me, but someone. A psychologist, maybe."

The suggestion touched a raw nerve and Grissom retreated physically as well as mentally, backing up a few steps until he came flush with the refrigerator door. But Sara moved closer and closer until she hovered just at the edge of his personal space. He began to tremble involuntarily.

"Promise me, Gil," she said again, more a plea than an order..

The look in her eyes reminded him of how she had looked that night, full of love and entreaty as well as a profound trust he was certain he no longer deserved. But she had every right to ask him for whatever she wanted, and his duty now was to obey her wishes.

"I promise."

The statement sounded stronger than he felt. But he noticed a moment later that the subtle quaking of his body had subsided.

* * *

While she did not betray outright surprise, Sara had braced herself for more of an argument from Grissom. When that did not occur, she simply nodded and moved away from him, just enough to let his body relax. While it hurt to see him so ready to retreat from even the possibility of her touch, she knew it had more to do with what had happened to them than his real feelings for her.

Casually, she looked past him to the hallway which led to the rest of the house.

"Are you sure it's alright if I stay with you?" Sara asked, her certainty faltering. "If my being here is going to make you this uncomfortable…"

For far too much of their relationship, she had always followed his lead, acceding to the walls and obstacles he put into place for them. Now, suddenly finding herself in charge, she was unsure about taking on the leading role.

"I want _you_ to be comfortable, Sara," Grissom assured her, and despite looking completely on edge, he was telling the truth, she knew.

"I want…" she trailed off, not entirely certain how to go forward. She thought hard for a moment, really hard, about both his needs and her desires and how to continue without causing further trauma to them both. With a sigh of finality, she confessed, "I don't want you to be alone, Gil. I know you wouldn't betray your word, but… I don't think you should be by yourself right now."

Before he could contradict her, Sara went on, "And I don't want to be alone, either. I've been alone most of my life, and these past two years with you… I'm not sure I can go back to that life again. I know I don't want to."

She let her declarations linger in the air without trying to qualify or explain her feelings further. Grissom would need time, just as he always did. With him, nothing was ever simple or quick. Rather, he approached his feelings as he might a case file or mystery: investigation, evidence collection, theorizing, and testing of the theory until all other reasonable conclusions could be excluded. In this instance, Sara was already far ahead of him, but attempting to force him to speed up his process would do more harm than good.

She waited the minutes necessary for Grissom to process her words, and just as she sensed that he was attempting to formulate a response, she added, "I'm not asking for anything… more. I know you need space, and I don't want to intrude on that. But…"

With an impotent shrug, Sara let whatever else she might have said fall away. Overtalking was still a weakness for her, at least where Grissom was concerned.

Thankfully, she did not have to wait long for his response. He seemed serious in his inner deliberations but also determined in whatever resolution his mind had set upon.

"I would feel more comfortable… if you stayed," he offered slowly. Another long paused followed, and he added, "My mother converted her guest room into an office a while back, but the mattress in the bedroom is comfortable and there are fresh linens in the hall closet…"

She shook her head. "I'm not taking your bed, Grissom. The couch is perfectly comfortable-"

"Sara, you're not sleeping on the couch," he admonished her in a way that ended the discussion entirely.

Having spoken the final word on the subject, he escaped the kitchen in pursuit of a new mission - to set Sara up in his mother's bedroom with clean sheets. But as Sara stood by and watched him move about with brisk efficiency, she realized how much he truly _needed_ to be doing something. Grissom was not the type to sit by and enjoy doing nothing. He preferred having an occupation, something concrete and definitive to accomplish.

After ensuring that Sara would have fresh sheets and pillowcases to sleep on, he moved her bag into the bedroom and found her a clean towel and washcloth. While she craved a hot shower, she also knew that her strength was waning after such a long day. The possibility of her falling in the shower and Grissom finding her there would be disastrous. Instead, she washed up using warm water from the sink.

By the time Sara was ready for bed, exhaustion had taken firm hold of her. While she knew she was due to take another pain pill from the increasing ache in her abdomen, Sara had wanted to push it off as long as possible. The medication made her drowsy and she had not been keen to fall asleep until at least beginning to address things with Grissom. And while there was much left to be said between them, at least they had found a beginning.

With a quiet, wistful voice, he wished her goodnight before treating to the couch in the living, leaving Sara to the silent emptiness of the unfamiliar bedroom. Sitting down on the side of bed, she took great care in lying down on her back. Her abdomen had healed considerably from the gunshot wound, but she had also overdone it throughout the day, standing and sitting up longer than the doctors at the hospital had advised. But, smiling to herself as she spied a photo of a young Gil Grissom on the nightstand, she decided it had been worth it.

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

Grissom took an extra pillow and one of his mother's crocheted throws to the couch, knowing even as he settled himself there that sleep would be difficult to find. He rarely slept much these days, if at all.

His time in county lock-up had certainly been an unpleasant experience, but not the typical one for criminals. As a former member of law enforcement, they could not house him with the other inmates, and after he attempted to hang himself, he'd been put on suicide watch. The former involved complete isolation. The latter meant not only isolation but with someone watching him at all times. He'd also been relegated to boxers and an undershirt on a bare metal bed with no sheets or blanket. With nothing to do but sleep or marinate in his self-made sea of recriminations, Grissom had learned then to avoid sleep so he could instead torment himself mentally, replaying every second of the hell he had lived in that garage over and over again.

Despite everything Sara had said, Grissom's heart was still coming to grips with what his mind had forced his hands to do. He also struggled to reconcile Sara's stated feelings about what had happened, about what he had done, with how she might feel were she not in love with him.

Her love, it blinded her sometimes. Having recognized that from the beginning, Grissom had avoided the subtle romantic gestures Sara made in the beginning. Bringing him hot coffee and a blanket during the pig experiment. Wiping chalk from the side of his face. The deliberate way she had informed him of her nightmares.

_She has a crush_ , he had dismissed it at first.

Goodness knew he had fallen victim to them himself. The name Terri Miller came to mind, and he permitted himself a wry snort at how quickly that particular daliance had ended. And for a long time, he thought his feelings for Sara were the same. Her enthusiasm for the forensic sciences was flattering to his ego, and she had been a young, beautiful woman besides. After their meeting at the conference in San Francisco, she had kept in touch with him, asking periodic questions about entomology and criminalistics while she gained experience as a CSI with the San Francisco Police Department.

By the time he asked her to come to Las Vegas, Grissom felt he had firmly slipped into the position of mentor, and the notion of any romantic entanglements between them felt inappropriate. Not only was he much older, but he had always interacted with her from a position of authority: lecturer, then mentor, and finally supervisor.

But then, their relationship in Vegas had evolved into something more complicated. Her crush had not gone away. Instead, it intensified over time. Anxious to avoid having to deal with the situation between them, Grissom had decided that someone else who would eventually capture her attention. Nick and Warrick were both smart, good looking guys, and she quickly established a relationship with each of them. She even beguiled shy, young David in the coroner's office and his DNA tech, Greg Sanders. Of course, Grissom knew that neither of those two would do for Sara. They were too awkward and geeky, too much like Grissom himself had been as a younger man.

The first time he recognized his own jealousy, she was joking with Nick. The emotion hit him unexpectedly and immediately a wave of shame flooded through him. What right did he have to hope Sara would prefer his company to Nick's? He was her boss, first of all. And of course the age difference would always disadvantage him. But if he were completely honest, Grissom had to admit that she was simply out of his league. While he could lecture for hours on the mating habits of insects, chatting up a woman was never a skill he had perfected.

But… she had persisted.

Small comments and asides now and then. Lingering looks. Once, she had asked him to dinner, and he had frankly admitted to having no idea what to do about the… thing between them. He could not even put a name to it. Friendship? Yes. Attraction? Certainly. Love? He was afraid to even answer that.

But more importantly, as her supervisor, he had a duty to look after her physical and emotional well being, to ensure she could competently perform her responsibilities. Stressful jobs like theirs took a toll, he knew all too well, and Sara's passionate nature left her too raw after exposure to the worst humanity had to offer. While part of him had wanted to comfort her, to pull her into his arms and tell her everything would be all right, that role simply wasn't for him. And showing too much familiarity would only confuse things between them more.

And then one day, after years working side by side with her, Sara had lost her temper during a particularly difficult case. She shouted at Catherine and showed disrespect to Ecklie. Grissom knew his failures as a supervisor had led to this behavior, that Sara's implosion likely could have been avoided if he had done right by her. For that reason, he went to see her at her apartment.

He had stayed for hours, listening to the story of her past, the memories of a child whose mother had stabbed her father to death. Sara had even expressed misgivings about her own character, something which had never occurred to him she felt. He recalled staying with her while she cried, the outpouring of her emotions effecting him so intensely that he had reached out to hold her hand. Even in memory, Grissom grimaced at having been unable to do anything else to sooth her suffering in that moment.

After that fateful day in her apartment, the heavy veil of emotions which had always surrounded them began to dissipate. He felt easier in her presence, and rather than seeming irritated at his refusal to acknowledge what was between them, she also seemed more at ease with him in general. Grissom assigned her to work with him on cases more and more, something he had avoided before. But they worked well together. They even joked back and forth, like old times. She could almost read his mind sometimes.

The only downside to the fragile accord between them proved to be his own emotions. Having been left unchecked, his attraction to her grew with each week, each case, each moment in her presence. And beyond that, Grissom knew that she could tell. Being near her had turned into a sweet torture he could only pretend to ignore. But she knew.

Eventually, after a long week of double shifts and too much overtime, happenstance and a cancelled court trial saw them both off for two days in a row, at the same time.

" _Want to get breakfast?" she asked as they left the building, the morning sun already heating up the asphalt in the parking lot._

" _I figured after being around me all week you'd want a break," he offered with a smile._

_Ignoring his self-deprecating humor, Sara offered, "I'll buy."_

_Exhaustion had weakened his usual defenses against her, and despite his better judgment, Grissom agreed._

_Breakfast turned out to be perfect. Sara ordered a veggie egg white omelet and he found himself commenting on her healthy choices._

" _You obviously haven't seen me pig out on cookies and ice cream while watching movies," she countered, grinning widely enough that he could seek the tiny gap between her top front teeth. Adoring the mild imperfection, he tried not to stare._

" _Which movies?" he asked instead._

" _You mean which movies are my favorites or which genres?"_

_Shrugging, he clarified, "Either. Both."_

" _Well, I like the classics," she offered._

" _Like Casablanca?"_

_Chuckling, Sara shook her head. "More like Hitchcock. The Birds, Rear Window..."_

" _Psycho?" he offered. She froze before shaking her head slowly, and he mentally chastised himself for forgetting her background. For someone whose mother had stabbed her father to death, the plot of that particular film probably didn't appeal to her._

_But Sara let the potentially mood-killing comment pass and instead offered, "Actually, one of my favorites is War of the Worlds. The original."_

" _Of course," he agreed._

_Discussion of movies shifted to exchanging their views on certain novels from their college days, which led to an interesting conversation about university experiences._

" _I'm sorry, I can't picture Gil Grissom in a fraternity," she declared, her enchanting grin once again making an appearance._

" _Well, it was a professional fraternity. Less beer and more discussion of science and mathematics…"_

" _That's more like it," Sara observed. The radiance of her smile seemed particularly beautiful in the sunlight, a sight he was not treated to often._

" _And you?" he asked, taking a sip of his coffee._

_Their empty plates had already been taken away by the server, and he was on his second cup. While the more logical side of his brain reminded him that extra caffeine would not help him fall asleep, the more emotional half scolded that he wanted to make the time with Sara last as long as possible._

" _Me in a sorority?" she said with amused disbelief. "Definitely not my thing."_

_But before he could respond, the server returned to their table and asked if Grissom wanted a third cup of coffee. The edge in the woman's voice reminded them they had been occupying the table for well over an hour, and as the hour approached noon, that table would earn her more tips with fresh customers._

" _No, thank you," he said, just as Sara was also shaking her head._

" _I should let you get home," she said, gathering her purse. "You must be exhausted."_

" _No more than you," Grissom murmured, but he also stood up. Placing several twenties on the table, he shook his head as her hand fished for her wallet. "I've got it."_

_As he followed her out of the restaurant, his hand automatically hovered at the small of her back. His touch was light, more of a reassurance than an attempt to lead her, but Sara only smiled at the slight pressure. Once in the parking lot, Grissom walked her to her car._

_But rather than get into her vehicle, she stopped in front of it to face him._

_"So, why don't you come over tonight?" she suggested. "We could watch a movie."_

_His mouth opened to answer her, to refuse, but Sara added, "Just friends. No pressure. Seven o'clock?"_

_While he appreciated her reassurance, they both knew it was not entirely the truth. Sara meant that she would not try to push for something more between them, like she once had. But if he made a move, she would not reject him. In addition to being the safest, most tempting invitation Grissom had ever received from a woman, he knew it was also the most dangerous._

_Perhaps the week of difficult cases had worn out his resolve, but Grissom did not have the strength to refuse her._

_"I'll bring dinner," he offered and was instantly_ _rewarded with an expression of surprised delight._

_"Sounds great," Sara beamed._

* * *

Grissom woke with a start, both astonished that he had actually fallen asleep and instantly afraid of what might have interrupted his unexpected slumber. Waiting for a moment, listening, Grissom focused all his senses on whatever sound or intuition had woken him. The knowledge that Brenda Waters was still out there, intent on harming Sara, kept him vigilant.

The sound - or whatever had roused him - did not reoccur, but Grissom stood up from the sofa anyway. He walked quietly to the front of the house and looked out the blinds facing the street. The patrol car still sat parked a little ways down, lights off but obviously occupied.

Grissom sighed to himself, the officers' continued presence a reassurance. Just to be certain, he tested the lock on the front door before walking through the darkened house to make certain the back door remained secured as well. Satisfied, he slowly and silently made his way to the bedroom to check on Sara.

She had left the door slightly ajar with the light in the bathroom on, the door cracked just enough for him to be able to make out her still form in the bed. She lay completely still, and he let out an almost inaudible sigh.

But just as he was about to return to the living room, he heard her whisper, "Gil?"

"Everything is alright," he assured her softly. "I was just... checking things."

With a sigh, Sara closed her eyes again and pulled the covers closer around her. For a long time, he simply watched her from the doorway, wondering how she felt so comfortable in his bed despite all that had happened. But after a moment, she rolled over uncomfortably and groaned in obvious pain.

He found himself by her side in an instant.

"What do you need?" he asked, his thoughts racing. In an instant, he realized she likely needed more pain medicine. After all, she had just been discharged from the hospital, and it had been only two weeks since she had been shot in the abdomen. "Did you bring your pills or do you need me to fill a prescription?"

"In my bag…" Sara groaned, and Grissom immediately went in search of her medication. In a flash, he returned with two pills and a glass of water.

"Honey, you're supposed to take these every six hours," he reminded her, knowing full well she had likely skipped one dose the evening before, if not more.

She made a dismissive noise but moved to sit up. She gasped in pain at what would have otherwise been a simple movement, but for someone with torn and healing abdominal muscles was agonizing. Without thinking, Grissom slid a comforting arm around her back and helped guide her up to a seated position until she could support herself.

With a nod of gratitude, Sara swallowed the pills and water he had brought her, but she made no move to distance herself from his touch. Rather, she sat still for a moment, just breathing in and out, and Grissom found that he was unable to pull his arm away from her. Her warmth slowly permeated into every fiber of his being, like someone being led from a dim, cold room out into the warmth of Las Vegas afternoon in early spring.

"You should go back to sleep," he said finally, carefully helping her recline back onto the bed, mindful of her injury. But as she laid her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes, he gently reached out to brush a lock of hair out of her face. The subtle movement caused Sara to sigh with such relief that his breath caught in his lungs.

Something about that simple action, demonstrating complete trust in him, twisted his heart. Before, he could not imagine ever being in her life again, not after what he had done. But now, it occurred to him that his ultimate goal going forward should be to protect her and keep her safe. He owed her that, surely, after what he had done?

"Will you stay?" she whispered, just as he moved to stand and leave the room. "Just until I fall back asleep."

Swallowing hard, Grissom nodded and said, "I'll stay. Just rest, Sara."

In the end, he laid down on the bed next to her, on top of the covers. At first, he had every intention of staying awake until he was certain her pain pill had kicked in and begun to provide her with some relief. But as the minutes passed and he heard her breathing change to the more even, measured cadence of sleep, he found himself unable to leave her side. Her closeness both soothed him and left him on edge, a strange and stressful dichotomy he could not work out.

In the end, he decided to simply stay awake through the night and leave the bedroom if he sensed any discomfort from Sara at his presence. Given his past insomnia, he felt confident he would not fall asleep again. But something about having her near, the reassurance of her warmth so close at hand, allowed both his mind and body to calm.

When he awoke, morning sunlight streamed through the windows of his mother's house and he made out the scent of coffee brewing.

TBC


	16. Chapter 16

"I didn't want to wake you," Sara declared as he entered the kitchen. The coffee pot was full and a pot on the stove simmered quietly, as though she had charmed his mother's appliances into silence so he might sleep in.

"Soup?" he asked, motioning towards the stove.

"Vegetables and noodles," she explained. "There wasn't anything except leftover pizza in the fridge so I went looking through the cabinets."

He nodded, grateful that she said nothing about what the state of his fridge implied about his eating habits.

"Can I help?" he asked, worried about Sara standing for so long with her abdomen still healing.

"I'm supposed to get up and walk around a little every day," she reassured him with a knowing smile. "Pour yourself some coffee and I'll bring you some soup."

Grissom did as he was bidden and sat at his mother's kitchen table. Once again, he felt overcome at being in a strange and surreal domestic situation with Sara again. For a moment, he could almost forget the occurrences of the past couple weeks and revel in the quiet comfort of her presence.

But then Sara set a bowl of soup in front of him, and his eyes fell on the splints on her fingers. The tremendous weight of guilt pressed on him anew.

As if she could read his mind - or just noticed where his eyes had been focused for too long - she told him, "I should be able to get the splints off in another week or so."

Unable to summon an answer, he nodded and took a sip of coffee.

They ate in silence for what felt like Grissom to be an eternity before Sara spoke again.

"They should be ready to release your townhouse today. I talked to Catherine this morning when you were asleep, and she has already contacted a clean up company. It should only take a day or two. So, if all goes well, you can be back home by this weekend."

Grissom silently shuddered at the thought. "I was thinking of selling it," he ventured, although, in all honesty, he had given the townhouse very little thought at all. But the very notion of trying to live there again sickened him.

Nodding sadly, Sara said, "I was afraid you might do that."

"The memories…" he began, but stopped as he noticed her expression. Tears had begun to gather in her eyes, and she refused to look at him.

"Sara?"

He wanted to reach across the table to take her hands in his, to reassure her with an innocuous touch, but he froze as an imagine filled his vision.

_His hand, wielding one of the sharp paring knives from his kitchen, drawing a long cut down the side of her arm. The outer layers of her epidermis split, but it took a moment for the shallow valley to fill with blood._

" _Too light," the masked woman chastised him. "Do it again. Deeper this time."_

_The second cut across her arm brought blood to the surface immediately, and his hand shook when Sara let out a low whimper. Unable to stop himself, he looked at her face in alarm._

_Her eyes locked with his and despite taking a shuddering breath, she did not make another sound._

" _Again," the woman commanded._

Closing his eyes, Grissom willed the images away so he could focus on Sara in the here and now.

"I'm not sure I can go back there again," he explained, "not without remembering everything…"

_Everything I did to you._

When Sara said nothing in response, Grissom forced himself to reach out for her even as his instincts screamed at him not to touch her. While he expected her to jump at the feel of his hand in hers, to pull away from him, Sara instead clasped his fingers tightly with her own.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Why are _you_ sorry?"

"I'm sorry that on top of everything else this has done to you, you have to lose your home as well."

Everything else…

Realization dawned, and Grissom understood her sadness. The arrest. Losing his job and going to jail. She blamed herself.

The injustice of it stirred actual rage in him for the first time - not at Sara, but at the situation which would leave her feeling guilty for something which had been done _to_ her. But just as quickly, that anger washed away as he observed the woman sitting opposite him.

"It doesn't matter," he said softly. "None of it matters so long as you're safe."

She regarded him warmly, a hint of a smile on her lips, but he sensed that his words had not provided the reassurance he intended. A moment later, his suspicion was confirmed as she asked, "Do you remember what I told you that first night when you came over to my place?"

He did not follow, and his raised eyebrow must have communicated his confusion.

Sara went on, "I promised you that I wouldn't let this... this thing between us... destroy your life."

* * *

_She had not really expected him to show up, despite his agreement to bring dinner. But at 7pm sharp, there came a knock on her apartment door._

_Sara grinned to herself, stopped to glance in the mirror, and then opened the door._

_He wore fairly casual clothes - a light blue, short sleeve button up and khaki pants - but she could tell he had made an effort with his appearance. His hair was freshly combed, his beard neatly trimmed. In one hand he held a plastic bag with what smelled like Chinese food, and in the other… a small plant._

" _Hi," she said brightly._

" _Hi," Grissom answered, smiling shyly before offering her the plant. "I was going to get flowers, but I know you like…"_

" _Vegetation," Sara finished with a laugh. "Yes, thank you. Come in."_

_After a bit of awkward small talk, they made themselves comfortable on her couch, him with his beef and broccoli and her with her vegetable chow mein and tofu. As they were discussing which movie to watch, Grissom impressed Sara with his knowledge of the history of chopsticks._

" _Confucius was a vegetarian, and he believed knives at the dinner table reminded people of the slaughterhouse. The knives' edges put them in mind of war and death, which spoiled the contented mood during meals."_

_With a chuckle, Sara agreed, "Confucius may have had a point."_

" _Or… not," he countered, raising his eyebrows at her teasingly._

_As she realized his pun, Sara shook her head in amusement and threw her napkin at him._

_Once dinner had finished, they selected a movie they were both familiar with but had not watched in a long time, The Maltese Falcon. Sara curled up on the couch just a little left of center, leaving him with plenty of room to either take the far corner or sit closer to her._

_Grissom chose to sit closer to Sara, although he left enough room between them that the Catholic Nuns from his childhood would have only given him a stern glare instead of a full dressing down._

_But as the movie proceeded, Sara could not focus on the plot. Instead, her entire attention was centered on the man next to her, the way he smelled, the tiny movements she noticed out of the corner of her eye as she deliberately did not look at him. Part of her wanted to close the gap between them, to violate the frail "just friends" promise she had made him with her invitation. But ultimately, Sara stayed the course, keeping to her side of the ever-present divide between them which at times felt as thin as paper and at others as massive as the Grand Canyon._

_But near the end of the movie, Grissom did something utterly unexpected. With a deep sigh, he reached over and deliberately put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her entire body flush with the side of his. Sara did not resist, but still she heard him asking, "Is this okay?"_

" _Yes."_

_Considering the circumstances, the simple affirmation felt hyperbolic in how much of an understatement it was to her now rapidly beating heart. His warmth seeped into her, and Sara reveled at the contact. How long had it been since she had been held like this by a man?_

_They finished the movie in the same position, with Grissom cuddling her to him gently. As the credits began to roll, Sara wondered if she should do something else or continue to let him go at whatever pace felt most comfortable. But as she glanced over to look at his face, she recognized that familiar expression of uncertain anxiety._

"I don't know what to do about this." _He had once told her that, and she knew he still did not know._

_And yet, his words to Vincent Laurie reminded her of the reason for his hesitation._ "Somebody young and beautiful shows up, somebody... we could care about. She offers us a new life with her. But we have a big decision to make, right? Because we have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her... I couldn't do it."

" _You know," she said quietly, deliberately not looking at him, "I could move to swing shift."_

_She might as well have declared she were an alien from outer space. Grissom immediately moved back from her, enough to look at her face. "Why would you do that?" he demanded._

_With a shrug, Sara said, "It gets around lab policy."_

_He stared at her for a long moment, obviously attempting to figure out what to say to her offer._

" _I don't want to lose you from the team," he ventured finally._

_The words crushed her heart, just as his rebuffs so often did, and Sara hated herself anew for having pushed it. Perhaps if she had simply let things be-_

_And then he kissed her._

_She looked up just as his lips pressed against hers, timid and undemanding, but Sara did not question his sudden change of heart. Rather, she kissed him back much less tentatively, bringing one hand to the back of his neck to keep him from escaping before she could make her feelings known. Parting his lips with hers, she deepened the kiss, wanting to taste him and feel his tongue against hers._

_When she finally let go of his neck and moved her hand down to his shoulders, Grissom broke away from her, and Sara reluctantly let him go. Opening her eyes, she saw him smiling at her. But then, slowly, his look of elation faded._

" _You know, this is sexual harassment," he told her, his voice full of self recrimination._

" _Only if you turn me in," she answered him tartly. Before he could correct her, Sara leaned forward to kiss him again._

_While she initiated the contact this time, Sara let him take the initiative in continuing their explorations of each other. His tenderness did not surprise her, but he turned out to be more confident than she expected. By the time they broke apart again, her heart was racing and she felt short of breath._

" _That's not what I meant, and you know it," Grissom reprimanded her, continuing their conversation as though it had never been interrupted. The nervousness in his eyes broke her heart, and she knew that without reassurance, he would never go further than what they had just done._

_Very deliberately, Sara sat back from him so that their bodies no longer touched. But she claimed his hand in both of hers._

_"Gil," she said, the name sounding strange on her lips, "I would never do that to you. I know you're afraid of losing your career if someone found out about us, but I would never purposely destroy your life. I swear to you."_

_Undeterred, he asked, "And what about you? Aren't you afraid of what people would say?"_

_Sara chuckled. "You think they don't already say that?"_

_His eyes widened in shock. "Do they?" he asked, obviously angry on her behalf._

" _It doesn't matter."_

_She made the statement off-handedly but to her, it really didn't. The complex and often painful relationship between her and the supervisor of the night shift had been apparent to everyone in the lab for years. Some had speculated they'd had an affair before her move to Vegas. Others painted her as the wanna-be who followed on his heels, desperate for any scrap of affirmation or attention. Sadly, Sara had to admit that the latter was much closer to the truth than she would prefer._

" _And what happens if we…" Forlorn, Grissom struggled with putting it into words._

" _Have sex," Sara offered bluntly._

_He gave a half nod to accept her answer and went on, "... and then things don't work out?"_

_Giving him a shy smile, Sara noted, "That's always the risk, isn't it?"_

_His seriousness remained. "I don't want to lose you," he told her again. "I would rather have you as a friend forever than a lover for a little while and then never see you again."_

" _So you're saying you don't think it would last?" she asked, irritated at his assumption._

" _I'm saying…" Grissom stopped with a sigh, obviously frustrated at his own difficult communicating. "I'm saying that I've never been particularly good at relationships."_

" _You think I have?" she quipped._

" _I think you… should be with someone who can provide you all the happiness you deserve."_

_His statement felt like a slap to the face, as though he believed she were a child with a crush, not a woman who had been in love with the same man for most of her adult life._

" _I think I should be the judge of that," she told him, keeping her irritation in check._

_Grissom nodded in turn. "I guess I just don't understand how I could be that for any woman, and especially you."_

_"Why 'especially me'?"_

_His eyes narrowed at the query. "Because, you are…"_

_She waited for his assessment with a mixture of fury and despair running through her veins._

_Hot headed?_

_Difficult?_

_Damaged?_

_"...perfect."_

_Her surprise must have been obvious because he cocked his head to the side. "You think I'm exaggerating."_

_"I think you're wrong," she corrected him. "If I was so 'perfect,' you wouldn't constantly be looking for ways to reject me."_

_Grissom looked pained by the accusation but did not argue her point. Instead, he observed quietly,_ _"Sara, I don't want you to wake up one day and realize you wasted the best years of your life with a old, boring entomologist."_

_"You aren't boring. And the best years of my life have been the ones with you in them."_

_They both went quiet for a long time, neither knowing what else to say. Grissom had made his case that she deserved better than him, but she still had no idea if he returned her feelings._

_"Do you care about me?" she asked finally. "I mean, more than just a friend or colleague."_

_He took a deep breath before answering, "Yes, Sara, I care about you. Deeply."_

_"Then you just have to decide if I'm worth the risk," she stated archly._

TBC


	17. Chapter 17

Grissom looked at her for a long time, his soulful blue eyes full of unexpressed emotion.

"You think you've destroyed my life?" he asked her in disbelief.

Sara looked down at their hands, fingers still entwined. "You were arrested, lost your job, your home… Gil, you tried to kill yourself."

He felt the shudder which ran through her body at the thought of what he'd done - or, at least, what he had tried to do. Again, he mentally castigated himself for one more action of his which brought her pain.

"I… didn't think I could live with myself," he said quietly. "And I wanted to spare you."

"Spare me?" she asked in irate disbelief. "When they told me what you tried, I almost couldn't believe it. Not Grissom. He would never do such a thing."

While Grissom was no longer particularly adherent to most of the Catholic beliefs he had grown up with, it was still difficult to reconcile away the mortal sin of suicide. The threat of eternal hell and damnation had kept a firm grip on Christians for hundreds of years. But for him...

"I was already in hell," he said with a sigh, "and I didn't want to either put you in the position of defending me against all the evidence, or... worse, thinking I'd deliberately harmed you."

At a loss for words, Sara gaped at his response.

Grissom went on, "And you haven't destroyed my life. If anything, you're the only thing that makes me want to keep on living."

The confession weighed heavily on him, something he was not sure he should have shared. Sara already carried too many burdens in her life, and he did not want her to shoulder the unwieldy weight of being his reason for drawing breath every morning. At the same time, he wanted to be truthful.

"Brenda Waters was after me," she reminded him softly, obviously still caught in the grip of her own guilt. "She used you to get at me. What you did... you did to save my life. You don't deserve to lose everything because of something that was my fault."

"If it wasn't my fault, then it certainly wasn't yours," he returned. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "Besides, you kept her from killing us both."

Sara answered his observation with a look of confusion.

"You don't remember?" he asked. "At the end, you kicked me and I fell. Waters and I struggled for the gun, and that's when you were shot."

More confusion. "I thought my legs were tied?" she asked.

"They were…" He paused, searching for a way to explain. "I had to untie you to…" he gestured at her injured foot.

"Oh."

"I just must have forgotten-"

He stopped at the look on Sara's face. She suddenly seemed ashen, as though she had witness the proverbial ghost.

"Sara?"

Slowly, she tore her eyes away from some empty point in space to meet his.

"I remember now," she told him. Pulling her hand away from his, she slowly molded it into the sign language gesture for "I love you."

"You were about to…"

Grissom nodded confirmation without her needing to say the words. "And you kicked me. If you hadn't-"

"The bullet which hit me would have killed you," Sara finished.

With a half smile which he didn't feel, Grissom shrugged his shoulder while tilting his head slightly to one side. Ambivalence about death had always been part of his personality, ever since his boyhood when he'd first seen bugs devouring dead squirrels in the yard. Death was just a part of life, after all, and his life was no more precious than anyone else's.

But Sara's was.

"I know you wanted to die," she said. "I could see it on your face every time you put the gun to your head."

He answered simply, "I wanted your suffering to end."

"And what about now?" Sara challenged him. "What about now?"

Looking down, Grissom watched as she took hand again and squeezed it gently. He thought for a long moment about how to express himself to her. Communication, at least in matters of the heart, was one of his greatest weaknesses, but Sara deserved no more than his best efforts. Finally, deciding to borrow the sentiments of a more capable wordsmith, he recited:

"When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising..."

Grissom paused for a long moment before looking up at Sara, his voice lifting at the sight of her... so achingly beautiful,

"Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings."

Sara smiled at him. "Shakespeare?" she guessed.

"Sonnet 29," he answered, "it has always made me think of you."

* * *

_"You just have to decide if I'm worth the risk," Sara told him._

_The pleasantness of their evening together had left him more vulnerable than usual, and he hated it when his shortcomings were so apparent. But the woman in front of him always looked past his failings and his weaknesses. She saw a side of him few others dared to glimpse, and she adored what she saw there._

_"Sara, you have always been worth the risk," he told her sincerely. "I'm just a coward."_

_"You aren't-"_

_"Yes, I am. I told you already that I'd rather have you as a friend than lose you forever. That's true, but…" He reached up to touch the side of her face, brushing her long, dark hair from her cheek. "How I feel about you… it terrifies me, Sara."_

_Her expression did not change with his confession. She continued to gaze at him, her dark eyes locked with his, holding him in an icy moment of silence as he waited for her reply. Finally, she leaned into him again, pressing her lips into his in a slow and passionate kiss. Her tenderness touched him deeply, in ways he could barely understand, let alone try to express to someone else. But by the time Sara ended the kiss, Grissom knew he was beyond excuses and fears. He was hers, utterly and completely, for as long as she wanted him._

_"That wasn't so scary, was it?" she remarked with a shy grin._

_With a wry twist of his lips, he answered, "No, it wasn't."_

_"Good."_

_Without further conversation, he surrendered to years of repressed desire and reached for her, ready to love with his body the woman he had loved with only his heart for so long._

* * *

After finally getting a night of much needed sleep, Catherine arrived at the office feeling both awake and motivated to not only find Brenda Waters but to seal the case air-tight. However, just as she got off the elevator, Nick waved her over.

"What's going on?" she asked. "Have they found her yet?"

Shaking his head, Nick said, "No, but we've searched her house. At first they staked it out, but when they were sure she wasn't going to come back, I went ahead and processed it."

"And?" Catherine prompted impatiently. "Did you find anything?"

"You could say that…"

With a gesture, he led her to one of the evidence rooms where a number of items had been placed on the under-lit table. Mostly they were pictures, but there were also newspaper clippings and papers with hand-writing. But the pictures were almost all of Sara.

"Wow…" Catherine observed, looking from one to the next. Some of the photos were crisp and from afar. Others seemed blurry but more close up. Most of them were from crime scenes.

The newspaper articles either featured Sara's name or else were about Water's husband Dan and his sexual assault trial. There was also a blurb about a "domestic disturbance with the one dead" which had obviously been buried in the crime section.

"We suspected that she was obsessed with Sara, but this really confirms it."

Nick murmured his agreement, then gestured to another picture. Catherine recognized it right away as the outside of Grissom's townhouse, with the address written on the bottom in red permanent marker.

"She's been planning this a while," Nick stated. "I don't think she's going to stop until she's finished what she's started."

"Did you find anything which might indicate where she'd be hiding?"

The other CSI shook his head. "She has no family, at least none in Vegas. Her dead husband was still listed as her next of kin."

"So all she's been doing since he died was plotting her revenge against Sara," Catherine sighed, shaking her head.

"And to think, she mourned the man who not only raped someone else but also abused her," Nick lamented. "I just don't get it."

"That's the thing about abusers. They convince their victims that _they_ are the ones who are at fault. If only they'd do better, do what the abuser wants, then they wouldn't have to be punished." Catherine looked again at the picture of their supervisor's townhouse. "That's why she didn't just kill Sara. She used Grissom to hurt her. She wanted Sara to have a taste of what it felt like to be abused by the person she loved the most."

Before she could say more, Warrick stuck his head into the room. "Brass just called," he said. "The alarm at Grissom's townhouse just went off."

Catherine interjected, "It might be the crime scene cleaners."

Shaking his head, the other CSI said, "No, I checked. They left hours ago."

"Tell Brass I'll meet him there."

* * *

By the time Catherine arrived, Brass and several other LVPD officers had already cleared the scene.

"Back door was pried open," he informed her. "But whoever was here is long gone."

"Anything taken?" she asked.

"Hard to tell," Brass responded. "Maybe Grissom could tell us."

Shaking her head, Catherine said, "I don't think he's interested in ever stepping foot in this house again."

With a shrug, the cop ventured, "It could be just an opportunistic burglar. Saw the cleaning crew leave earlier and figured the place wasn't unoccupied."

"Yeah, "she agreed. "But it doesn't feel that way. Care to look around with me, just in case?"

He inclined his head. "After you."

The townhouse looked just as she had seen it last, although the cleaners had done their work well. Gone were any traces of black powder from their search for fingerprints. She had no desire to go into the garage, but she suspected that it was also clean and completely clear of blood. The smell of stale copper in the air had been replaced with a lemony disinfectant.

As they swept through the house, Catherine thought hard about how it had looked when she'd searched the premises earlier. But nothing seemed particularly out of place until she entered Grissom's den. None of the books had been out earlier, but now one lay on his desk. Looking more closely, she noticed it was an old-fashioned address book.

Glancing down, she noted that it was open between the letters L and N, but the page marked "M" was gone.

"M?" she said aloud.

Brass raised an eyebrow. "Mom?"

"Crap," Catherine swore to herself.

TBC


End file.
